Breathtaking

Rating: 9/10 (6 April 2002)

As I am rather young, I had just finished the books a couple of weeks when I went to see the movie, so Tolkien's work was still pretty much alive in my head as I saw the picture and I have to say that PJ has done an outstanding job to the point where you can say the movie is even better than the book.Personally I considered the first book to be the most boring.I didn't quite liked Tom Bombadil, neither the barrow-wights so I thought it was superb that these were left out of the movie.The decision to cast some unknown actors was excellent; Hollywood stars would have caught attention by the name and not by the characters they would have played.Orlando Bloom was spot on and so was Liv Tyler(she can give me a sponge bath any time), even though I am sad to see that Arwen's enhanced role was not appreciated(in the trilogy there is a constant lack of female characters, which is a drawback).What else is there to say?Howard Shore has done a great job, congratulations for him for his Oscar, which was well deserved.The visual effects were stunning, the acting was great(Sir Ian McKellen deserved that Oscar) and so was everything else. Brilliant!