Fine movie, just a little rushed

Rating: 9/10 (26 December 2001)

With all the hype that Lord of the Rings has been getting, my hopes were way up before seeing this movie. As an old Fantasy/ Middle Earth fangeek, I figured if the other fans are loving it, they can't all be wrong.
Well, I did like the movie, but it wasn't the epiphany I was expecting. It's an entertaining take on Middle Earth, and what is in the movie is done well. It's what's missing that I was dissatisfied with. The movie feels rushed. It's a huge book to adapt, but I feel that the story told in the movie doesn't really hang together and isn't plausible without understanding the book. It's a good try, but I would say that movies like Star Wars or the Matrix, which create their own mythology, or movies like Blade Runner which doscards much from the text it's derived from, have the advantadge over movies like The Fellowship. The sheer amount of detail and plotting that went into the book are difficult to convey onscreen. Not having that detail and plotting detracts from the movie, even without comparing it to the book.