most wonderfully executed movie I've ever seen

Rating: 10/10 (13 July 2002)

I saw The Fellowship of the Ring at a theatre on New Year's Day of 2002 and was amazed. I had barely heard of Tolkien before hearing of the production of this movie, and even then, I dismissed it as mere pop-culture hype, similar to the likes of Harry Potter. Only until a few weeks before seeing the film did I begin to become really interested. I'm pretty sure that by the time I was walking into the theatre, I was expecting to see the best movie ever, and by the time I walked out three hours later, I think I was right.
I am glad that I didn't take any drinks into the movie, because looking back, I would have been disappointed to have missed one minute of it due to a bathroom break. The landscapes of Middle Earth were beautiful, the music was wonderful (I didn't realize this until listening to the score independent of the film seven months later, however.), and now that I've started reading the books and building my own mental images of them from Tolkien's writings, I can see for myself how correct the hard-core Tolkien fans were who said that the movie followed the book almost perfectly.
Not only in action and dialogue, but in the representation of personalities and character. Gandalf and Bilbo were perfect. The hobbits in general were great, though I must complain about Elijah Wood's being cast as Frodo. Sorry, I just don't like him.
When my brother popped CD of the original score into our CD player last week, I could see the movie play out as I heard the music. When I also started reading him the track names, he (who is currently reading The Fellowship) replied that the track names directly coincide with the chapter names in the book-another hint that the producers of the movie cared about following the book, something that I greatly appreciated.
I was pretty much a stranger to fantasy before seeing this movie and reading The Hobbit (I had only read C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia in grade school), so I feel that almost anyone who enjoys adventure films or a classic storybook-style tale will definitely enjoy this movie, and those that are fans of the genre should simply not do without.
10/10