Toss it into the fires of Mount Doom!

Rating: 5/10 (16 August 2002)

Middle Earth is a wacky place with bizarre cultures co-existing illogically without any kind of interacting economic/political or social structure. Ruling Wizards just live in big dark fortresses and have armies who do their bidding on a whim. Orc soldiers need their general to be born in a puddle of lava-like ooze, and then run for miles non stop in heavy black armor on sunny days only to get promptly dispatched by two warriors' ho-hum display of Errol Flynnery. Elves have beautiful digs but no hint of how they built them or maintain them. Wringwraiths, about the most inept posse of idiots since the Keystone Cops, looked like they'd have done better to steal that farmer's scythe and fight over who should stand in line for the grim reaper's job after he meets himself. The hobbits all look like they fell out of Dickens while the tavern/inn scene looks like something out of a 17th century pirate movie. This as the rest of the film's look is ostensibly dark ages when not outright fairy-tale. There is A LOT wrong with this picture!
I never read Lord of the Rings all the way through (never held my interest) but I agree with others who say a movie should stand on its own. If the story can't make a decent three act movie, why bloody adapt it. Harry Potter is another example of a wildly successful book turned into a completely plotless movie. Hasn't anyone learned anything after Dune was adapted into a slow moving incomprehensible mess in 1984?
To say the three Lord of the Rings films can't be condensed into a shorter running time is bosh. This first film is a sprawling bore and explains nothing about the characters and cultures it insists we meet. A little bit of back story, sub text and a less lazy writer could have fashioned something more concise, logical and entertaining. As it is this movie is not good. It has its moments, but moments don't make a worthwhile experience at the cinema.
It's a mystery to my why the Lord of the Rings is such a popular literary work in the same why I never understood the Dungeons and Dragons phenomenon. This might make me sound like a hater of fantasy but I'm not. I love good fantasy stories which are done well. This is just a good looking coffee table fable with no substance.
When you take away the beautiful locations, fantastic imagery and CGI what are you left with? Just another extremely cheesy wizard against wizard story like something Jack Palance used to headline. Instead of being Excalibur (which Jackson steals from on more than one annoying occasion) or Dragonslayer this film is Hawk the Slayer or The Sword and the Sorcerer wrapped in gorgeous cinematography.
As good as Ian McKellen is in this film he cannot match the brilliance of Nicol Williamson and Ralph Richardson in Excalibur and Dragonslayer respectively. And Christopher Lee as a wizard we can remotely take seriously? Please.
This film is just not worth its praise. The acting is fine. The look of it as Ive said is at times fantastic. But the script is just aimless, choppy and devoid of clever story-telling.
Another addition to the bad movie file. Even that gawdawful Willow was better than this.