Top of my list for 2001

Rating: 10/10 (26 December 2001)

Arguably there have been a bunch of good and bad movies this year. Opinions abound on the selection and diversity but the bottom line for me is that there has not been a single film that has blown me away. There have been plenty that I enjoyed and thought were very well done and many others on the opposite spectrum. But finally for the year 2001 (as it draws to a close), I can finally say that I have found a movie that has taken my breath away. I am die-hard fan of the novels, having read Tolkein's works and though many other die-hard fans have noted/criticised the absence of Tom Bombadill, the extra scenes of Lady Arwen and the lack of character development for Boromir, Gimli and Legolas... I say to them, "You try and bring a legendary tale that has captured many imaginations to the big screen and try to fit it all in under 3 hours." For while my heart, too, ached that I wished to have seen Tom dancing over the hills, seen more of Gimli recite the history of the dwarfs as they went into the mines, and watched more development between Frodo and his fellow stalwarts, Sam, Pippen and Merry, I would have probably ended up with a 10 hour movie in order to tell the whole tale in its entirety. In fact being a die hard fan I probably would have sat through 10 hours if that's how long the movie took but most others probably would have fallen asleep at the pace. For three hours, it's pure magic and that's what fantasy story telling is all about. It's the first movie where afterwards I came out talking about it for hours on end (even talked about it longer than after seeing Memento). It's utter cruelty that we have to wait until the end of next year before "The Two Towers" graces our screens. It's about time that the "fantasy" genre has come forth in proper force. Whilst sci-fi, drama, comedy, war, action and horror and all the other genres have been given their fill, "fantasy" has never been done to the potential that our imaginations conjure. Finally this movie does just that... and that's the bottom line.