Ok, but not great

Rating: 8/10 (27 December 2001)

I've waited for a movie version of The Lord Of The Rings since I first read the book some thirteen years ago. I reread the first part of the book before I went to see the film. And now after seeing it here are my thoughts:
The feel of the book has been captured well. All the changes made to the story itself can be justified by the change of format. The People, landscapes and monsters of Middle Earth appear as I've always imagined them. The actors are mostly Ok, portraying their characters true to the book. My personal favorites were Ian McKellen and Ian Holm, who played Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins respectfully. Especially their scenes together early on in the film worked very well.
There are also problems with this film, which are caused by the sheer amount of information and pages in the book. It is too short even with it's length of three hours to carefully introduce and develop the characters and advance the story. After Frodo leaves the Shire events simply rush by at ridiculous speed until he reaches Rivendell. In the book this point divides the story in two, but in the film the first half of the book takes up something like only third of the length The Council of Elrond is one of the most disappointing scenes in the film. If it were done properly it would have been a good spot to introduce some of the characters to the story giving more information on their background. Now it feels like it's straight from some b-class fantasy film which this film is definately not. Artistically it would have probably been better to divide the book into six two-hour movies, but sadly it would likely have not been commercially feasible.
Even with all the downsides it's still one of the best fantasy films (non-animation) ever, and a good start to the trilogy. 8/10