An excellent adaptation of perhaps the best fantasy epic ever.

Rating: 10/10 (31 January 2002)

For anyone who has read Tolkien or ever heard of his name in some bar somewhere this movie is a must see!! Chock full of Elf, Orc, Troll and Sorcerer goodness. Not to mention of course our real heroes, the hobbits. As near as I can tell here are the "bad" points.... One: Too Long... Some people are claiming that just shy of three hours is far too long. I do see their point, I mean if I had the attention span of a gnat I'd be itching to buzz off too. Seriously though, admittedly I would have loved to see this as 6 two-hour movies but the more "mainstream" audience would never have stood for it. I credit the writers for making this a digestible movie for the less enthusiastic. Two: It doesn't have any closure... DUHHHH!!!!!! This did not come from a trilogy! The Lord of the Rings is a SINGLE book divided into three volumes. You will not see the real end for two years (alas). Three: The Love Story as in lack of screen time... The whole Aragon/Arwen thing probably got more attention in the Movie then in the book... Much like the book I expect far more in Part 3 "The Return of the King" Four: Simple story... Ummm, some of the greatest movies ever had basically simple plots. Look at Star Wars, The Godfather, Indiana Jones, Saving Private Ryan, Castaway, Goodfellas, Silence of the Lambs, Casablanca, Shindler's list. I've even seen the "Memento" plot done before, twice (admittedly only twice). These are all still great movies, In fact the only REALLY unique movie of the top 10 (8 I've seen) is, maybe, Citizen Kane. For top grossing it isn't until you get to ET that you see a really unique plot. Anyway point is that the little things are what really make the difference in a plot.
'K enough venting at certain critics. This is definitely a movie to see but if your really worried about it wait for it at your video store and watch on your nice couch at home, the one thing you'll lose is the cinematography unless you got a nice big 60" screen. It has the best camera work and landscapes that I've ever seen in a movie.