Spectacular Art Direction!

Rating: 9/10 (25 December 2001)

This is a fine, ambitious movie in a year when movies have been mostly pedestrian. It blows the cute Harry Potter right out of the water in terms cinematic impact. LOTR also has about the best art direction I've ever seen in a movie. The worldbuilding of Middle Earth was just wonderful.
The casting is also top-rate. Elijah Wood did not disappoint as the young Hobbit who takes a very unexpected adventure. And Ian McKellan is superb as Gandalf. Viggo Mortensen, an actor who'd never made an impression on me before, was particularly fine.
As I'm not a Tolkein purist, I don't mind seeing Arwen's part beefed up a little, because the lack of women in the trilogy has always bothered me. The adaptation was just great. The first time I saw the movie, I did complain about the editing, but, now that I've seen the movie many times, I think I may have seen a somewhat flawed copy of the movie.
So while I don't think this is the best movie I've ever seen, it is a very good one, definitely worth your time even if you haven't read Tolkein.