The film is remarkable in its faithfulness to both the book and marketability.

Rating: 10/10 (27 December 2001)

The film is remarkable in its faithfulness to both the original material and to the needs of today's film market. Obviously, inclusion of every detail, side jaunt, campfire tale, poem, and such could have produced a six-hour (or longer) film. Equally obviously, that would not have been marketable. Jackson has compromised by leaving out a few entire characters and situations. However, many subtle details are left in without overt comment, and nearly everything said and shown is largely in agreement with the text.
Of course, the film ends (as does the first book) at an uncomfortable moment. The Fellowship has been forged and broken, and the Ring has made significant progress in its journey. But the real story is only 1/3 told, and two more films are scheduled to follow at one-year intervals. In fact, there is probably no way to remain true to the text and end the film any other way.
Fair warning: spoilers abound in the balance of this review.
Critics have made much noise about the enlargement of the role of Arwen. Indeed, she is more visible in this film than in the original text. However, nothing was done with her character that is not supportable by published (and unpublished) material outside the original text.
In fact, it may be best to think of the original text and this film as parallel retellings of the same historical events. The text was by a contemporaneous author (possibly Bilbo), his worldview didn't allow his queen to be seen to have an overly active role, and so he downplayed her involvement in the story. The film, on the other hand, is by an historian with access to the work of Bilbo in addition to other historical sources, and so takes a more modern view of the role a future queen might play in support of her beloved, unacknowledged king.
This same explanation supports the omission of Tom Bombadil, and the other events that are glossed past without deep explanation. The film is attempting to be popular fiction about these events, and so spends greater effort on the main story line at the expense of the deep historical background. Of course, the interested reader can turn to the text to learn more.
The only place this lack of depth really hurts the exposition of the film is in the backgrounds of some of the members of the Fellowship. The back stories of Legolas, Gimli, and to some extent Boromir are cut short enough that their presence is somewhat mysterious to a viewer unfamiliar with the story. This then weakens the impact of the discovery of Balin's tomb in Moria.
Some of the film reorders the telling of the story for better cinematic effect. The fact is that the reader is often a more patient animal than the film audience. On film, it is possible to intercut multiple story lines, allowing for pacing of the action on multiple fronts and the result is often better cinema than if the stories were simply told separately. The opposite is often true on paper. This film takes advantage of this to fill in Gandalf's problems with Saruman while the Hobbits are making their way to Rivendell. It works. I expect to see more of this in the next two movies since the books spend significant spans of text (half a book at a time) on each of three points of view before things come together for a dÃ©nouement.
Turning away from the content, lets look at the form of the production.
First, the combination of skillful location choices, amazing sets, and phenomenal effects produced almost impossibly believable images of Middle Earth. Without intimate knowledge of the production and the New Zealand locations, it is difficult to distinguish the boundaries between disciplines.
Second, the casting has largely produced actors that fit my own images of the characters. Elija Wood as Frodo and Ian McKellen as Gandalf seem, in particular, to have been born to play these roles. The others fit nearly as well. The sole exception is the casting of Hugo Weaving as Elrond, where my own imagination would have him be taller and broader, in short more obviously half-elven.
Often neglected in critical reviews is the casting of Ian Holm as Bilbo. The film touches on Bilbo's finding of the Ring during the events of The Hobbit, but really focuses (as did the book) on the last part of his life. Holm plays Bilbo at several ages, and manages to give a great deal of depth to the old Hobbit, even though his part in this tale is very much on the periphery of the action. An extremely strong scene that is extrapolated from the text comes during Bilbo's 111th birthday party. A visibly animated Bilbo is caught telling the tale (from The Hobbit) of his nearly being eaten by Trolls to a rapt audience of local hobbit children. The cluster of wide-eyed, curly-haired hobbit children waiting on every word and squealing at the right moments is both touching and intensely funny.
A nice touch is the later use of the Troll's lair as the location for one of the scenes with Strider during the flight from the Shire to Rivendell. A similar scene occurs in the book, but in the film the audience is left to notice on their own the large, stone Trolls visible behind the action.
Third, the editing produced a film that ran over three hours and left the audience wanting more. Strong action is relieved by quiet moments. There is room for touching moments, fabulous vistas, fast-paced fighting, and clear exposition of Frodo's fear of discovery when forced to use the Ring.
Finally, I was really impressed by this film. It really does live up to its hype, and manages to pay homage to a significant work of literature without loosing the charm of the original novel, or mangling the story beyond recognition. It is accessible to both the student of Tolkien and the neophyte alike, and apparently enjoyable to both.