Why FotR is a moderately good fantasy movie but NOT (by a long shot) the movie of the century

Rating: 4/10 (19 December 2001)

First off: As far as fantasy movies go this is a fairly good one. It is just orders of magnitude above the likes of e.g. "Dungeons and Dragons" but that is mainly due to the abysmal quality of those flicks.
But how does LotR compare to other, "normal" films? Well, that's a mixed bag. From a technical point of view: It does employ several interesting techniques such as blurring, out of focus filming, or the rather good visualisation of Frodos shadow world experiences. Additionally, the "shrinking" of the Hobbits works extremely and surprisingly well...apart from some minor occurences that left me feeling a bit uneasy (without being able to say why) the film manages to let the audience accept and believe the differences in height between humans (etc.) and hobbits.
As for the "stunning visuals": Lots of people claim New Zealand is an amazing country and does offer beautiful and breathtaking locations around every corner. I've never been there myself, so I just have to assume they know what they are talking about... and the LotR-FotR movie has not done much to change that. And that is because of the massive employment of CGS. Almost every single scene that displays the world of Middle Earth is in one way or the other either completely computer generated or computer "enhanced". This is of course inevitable when it comes to locations such as Rivendell or Moria (and these almost invariably look great), but... The problem is that even nowadays it is still possible to tell CGS from filmed ones and imho too many computer generated scenes in too short a span of time convey a feeling of irreality. I know, the story is supposed to take place a long time ago, when the world looked different and there were still elves and dwarves and magic around, but LotR-FotR managed to give me the "Oh no, not another CGS" feeling. It would have preferred if the weather peak had been an ordinary film set, for example. All in all, however, I really liked the technical side of the movie.
Now for the story (I'm going to announce spoilers, but there are almost none): Obviously a movie isn't a book. Deviations in style and story are inevitable when translating one into another. However, I don't think FotR manages particularly well. Let me explain:

The significance and power of the one ring (and the other rings as well) are insufficently introduced. (2 minor SPOILERs ahead) Gandalf states "I don't want the ring, I would use for good things." Fullstop. So what? Likewise Galadriels "fit" is hard to understand without the background information of the book. Her words: "But I pass the test. I will diminish and go into the west and stay Galadriel" are especially bad. How is someone who hasn't read the books supposed to know why she will "diminish" and "go ito the west", whatever that means. The relationship between the one ring and the elven rings and the dilemma and the sacrifice of the elves is completely left out of the movie!

Often the movie introduces certain places (Gate of Rohan, Moria, Caradhras, Lothlorien, Mordor, and especially Gondor and the White City), without giving the audience any idea of what they mean and where they are. Sure, you can't put all the background information of a book into the movie, but neglecting it completely can't be the best way to go. (minor SPOILERS ahead) As it is, FotR conveys NO information at all about the significance of Gondor for example, or why the fellowship has to stay on the west side of the mountains, or why they can't pass the Gate of Rohan, what the mines of Moria were and are and where the hell this "Mordor" is in the first place. It thus fails to set the stage for the following movies.

The main focus of the movie seems to be the display of fights or flights. So it is either Aragorn stabbing Orcs or the hobbits running away. The remaining time is used to loosely connect these scenes with each other. Of course, this generates a lot of action and suspense but given the intricate story of the books this doesn't work particularly well. Someone who hasn't read the books is likely to get the idea that the books are just your everyday fantasy literature with some band of adventurers hacking and slashing away at Orcs to accomplish this goal or another. Which it isn't. SPOILER ahead: I feel that the time of some of the overly long fighting/suspense scenes (especiallythe fight with the troll in Moria and the scene on the collapsing stair) would have been better spent on some more background information, character development and/or just plain conversation.

There are other (minor) points of criticism, e.g.: the way in which the course of events has been changed in the movie, which gives rise to some questions, (SPOILER ahead) for example how Gandalf managed to complete the journey to Isengard, his imprisonment and the escape in the same time which Frodo needed to get from the Shire to Rivendell. , but since none of these points weigh as heavily as the ones outlined above I will leave them out of this review for the sake of brevity.

As a conclusion: From my point of view, the movie felt like a flat stone skipping over water, touching certains point in the book (mainly fights), and then jumping to the next, without following a visible path. So I don't think that LotR-FotR ist "the best of movie ever" or "of the century", not even "of the year" (my personal favourite is Amelie), nor is it a "masterpiece". It is a rather good fantasy movie which utilizes the main ideas of the LotR books to display lots of running and fighting. It seriously fails to set the stage for the movies to come, fails to motivate the actions of the Fellowship as it should, fails to flesh out the characters sufficiently and completely fails to include even the slightest bit of the history and shape of Middle Earth which make Lord of the Rings such an extraordinary book. And if you have seen (and maybe even liked) the movie but haven't read the books, then for heavens sake go out and buy a copy of them as soon as possible, there is just so much more in the books than the film even gives an idea of!
P.S.: Please excuse my bad english, this is also the reason for the "brevity" and not very good argumentative structure of this review...