If you havn't read the book it's confused & shallow

Rating: 1/10 (10 August 2002)

I speak having seen the movie but not read the book first and I guess my views on the film will be unpopular in many quarters.If you love the book and loved the film, don't read this because you won't agree with me! If you make a movie it should stand on it's own and not require any viewer to read the book first or resort to the 'official guide' in order to fill in gaping holes on the plot. Sadly this film, which is undoubtedly visually striking leaves those who have no prior knowledge confused, disappointed and frankly unlikly to watch the next episode.Well, it did me at any rate. I was quite prepared for a major motion picture experience, a STAR WARS or a CITIZEN KANE, if the PR was to be believed, but what I saw was a 3 hour special effects show that put visuals and violence above script, hype and expectation above substance and left me not really giving a damn about the bloody ring! The story seems far too long and involved to be condensed into even a 9 hour trilogy and the mass of characters and situations leave one feeling that the book's depth has merely been scratched at. There are huge and ridiculous gaps in the story (if the ring lay happily undiscovered for all those centuries,why then not just re-bury the thing?)which I assume the book fills but the movie does not. If I sound harsh it's because I was disappointed. I ended up believeing that the book probably is just too long to treat in this way and that many of the elements of a great movie, not least that the viewer can relate to or care about the lead character's fate and comprehend the motives and actions in some way seem to have been lost in order to charge on to the next big battle. As for some of the characters who pop up and then vanish, what for example was Cate Blanchet's character all about? It seemed like she was stepping onto the set of the wrong movie. What was the point of her being there at all apart from to add some glamour in a male dominated cast? She seemed to have no relation to the story at all! I suppose all will be revealed in Part 2 or maybe part 3, but frankly I don't care enough to sit through three more hours of pitched battles and hundreds of two-dimentional bit-part characters, let along three more after that! Aside from the structural and script problems, the acting was mostly quite good with Wood played Frodo very well and McKellern (with his mahogony voice) being well suited to Gandalf but some of the others were no more believeable than a TV cartoon and neither was most of the dialogue.
Is this a great film? Not in my opinion. It may be based on a great book but you shouldn't need to read that book to make sence of the movie, that's just not good film making. Sorry! But thats how I saw it.