Great Entertainment

Rating: 9/10 (15 December 2002)

This fantasy film is grand, with lots of story telling, adventure, and suspense. Aside from the obvious occult theme, the movie is extremely entertaining. Wonderful landscapes, both real and computer generated (CGI). The real landscapes are breathtaking. Both real and CGI settings are very compelling to watch, as are the characters, beings, and monsters. This film is full of special effects but they 'magically' never overwhelm the story, which is a great credit to the film makers.
This film is great to watch by anyone interested in this sort of movie, whether readers of the books or not. No prior knowledge of the books is needed to enjoy this movie. The characters and relationships are at times developed quickly but these developments are good enough to give an understanding of the characters, their relationships, and keep the moving going well. Even during the slower scenes, the pace is quick enough to maintain interest.
I never much cared for the books of this story by Tolkien, and they line my library as unused reference. This film keeps close enough to the story for me and I consider it great entertainment.
As the PG-13 rating implies, this film is a little too much for smaller children, even with parental presence. Although there's no vulgar language, there is a little too much violence, darkness and fantasy for the young. It is almost 3 hours long, which explains the quick pace and the brevity of story development. Any longer and it would have turned into a mini-series and perhaps for some would have lost some of its entertainment strength. This refers to the 2002 widescreen 2-disc set, non-extended edition.