Alright entertainment, poor conversion

Rating: Null/10 (7 December 2003)

My problem with this film is one which won't apply to a large proportion of viewers. The book is english. This film is not. Simple.
Some will come back and say this surely doesn't matter. Imagine a film about New York being filmed in London (stupid idea) or how about a John Steinbeck novel being filmed in Cornwall (another stupid idea). Britain and subsequentially the book has it's own unique personality (even though this film is set in middle earth all the locations and indeed characters show traits of britishness). The casting was in some parts very good (Christopher Lee/Saruman) and in some parts abysmal (Viggo Mortenson/Aragorn).
Having been brought up around the characters in the book, visited Bree-like villages and walked on middle-earth style moors; I can say (however captivating and beautiful New Zealand is) this film captured none of LOTR's rugged beauty. The portrayal of Hobbiton was facile and contrived and everything had an over produced look and feel (the genius of Tolkein was in the details which this film smoothed over).
My main problem with the film however is the bits it left out. Tom Bombadil was one of the most interesting characters; this was the easiest part to cut as it's relevance to the rest of the book is limited. However the Old Wood, Old Man Willow, the Barrow Downs and many other sections cut out would have been the most cinematic of the lot, especially the Barrow Downs; another quintessentially english image (just go out on the moors in a thick mist and you know where Tolkein's inspiration came from). The first book has more filmic sections than the other two put together and I'd have preferred to see this film take up half the total running time of all three movies and cut down on the lengthy battle scenes of Two Towers (and inevitably Return of the King unreleased at the time of drunken rant).
If I had never read the books this would have been a reasonable film. Very americanised (I know P. Jackson is from N.Zealand). One day they'll get it right hopefully and do the Hobbit while they're at it. They should wait for CGI to be able to handle the task first though. The CGI in this film (the cave troll especially which was not even in the book) was abominable.
Don't expect much from this film. Some people like it but they don't know what they're talking about (arrogance is ugly but I don't care, I'm a better person than you anyway).