No. It doesn't work.

Rating: 6/10 (20 January 2002)

*** WARNING: SPOILERS!!
First of all: I like Tolkien's work very much. I read LOTR twice and The Hobbit once. In my opinion there's nothing wrong with making a movie from the book, so I went to see the first movie, and I had high expectations, having read so many positive comments about it on Internet and newspapers. Anyway, I had an open mind: OK, many beautiful scenes will not be there (Tom Bombadil, etc.) and it probably will not be able to fully capture the atmosphere of such an huge masterpiece, but, well, I have the chance to finally SEE one of my favourite stories on the screen, as imagined by someone who, as everybody say, loves LOTR and had tried to be as faithful as possible to Tolkien's wonderful work! I went to theater with my girlfriend. She never read LOTR, so I gave her a short intro myself about the story to help her catch as much as possible, then the movie began.
The intro was fine, given the time Jackson had to work with. Stunning effects, cinema, battle coreography. Good explanation of the ring's story. I felt even more excited at what was coming next. My girlfriend was interested. The Shire too was well portrayed, actually even better than I had portrayed it in my mind reading the book, I thought. Amazing! But, when Frodo and Sam leaved, the movie began to sink. I started to feel uneasy when Merry and Pippins appeared. They were... obnoxious. Incredibly stupid and childish. What? They aren't so! As I already said, I was prepared to the cutting of the ancient forest and Tom Bombadil; painful, but you can't have everything in three hours and it would turn the movie into something like a musical. OK, but... why Jackson loses so much time with the dark knights instead of better developing the characters? Why he doesn't show the knights only once from far away, without contact, for example, just to introduce the real danger and build tension? You had a battle during the intro, you'll have more later! Brea episode is overly simplified but not so bad. I understand the reasons behind the amplified Arwen's role, but why Jackson didn't shrink, for example, the attack where Frodo is wounded? I mean, show quickly the wounding by only one knight, almost "easily" defeated, for example, and give extra time to the Elrond's Council, which is one of the most important episodes of the trilogy, if not THE most important one! And please, use things like "X time later..." here and there to show better that the Council takes place a lot of time after the hobbits' departure from the Shire! What about the wizards' battle? Why? Cut even the Caradhras episode telling something like it would be impossible in that season to walk through the mountains, or Saruman made it impossible, if you absolutely need more time to well develop the story! Lothlorien is more important and there are only few minutes to show what happens there! Shrink the battle in Moria before the Balrog appears (the best monster I've ever seen, BTW)! I don't know, but you have choices!
I could go on and on, but this comment is already too long. Constraints also here! ;-) The point is that I feel Jackson didn't choose well what to cut. He filled the movie with action and thrilling episodes, even more than in the book (think to the wizards' battle or the creation of the Saruman monsters), simplifying everything else and rendering the characters almost like phantoms (think to Legolas) or caricatures (think to Merry, Pippins and partially Gimli). The movie is a dark-heroic-war-action-thriller full of unanswered questions about people appearing here and there like mushrooms.
All in all, and I'm very sad to say that, boring. Simply boring. My girlfriend was p****d off when we walked out the theater and I felt very embarrassed. I doubt she'll read the book now. I tried to rebuild the magic of the Tolkien's creation I had talked about before, but probably this movie made too much damage.
This is not LOTR. This is something else and I don't like it. The acting is acceptable (Gandalf, Bilbo and Saruman more than acceptable), given the script. 9/10 for effects, coreography, landscapes... 4/10 for the atmosphere, the characters, the script (more important things in a movie, at least for me).