Only somewhat disappointing

Rating: 7/10 (23 December 2001)

I was expecting a movie worth an 8. I got a move barely worth a 7, so far. I believe many of the problems I had with the film will be fixed in the DVD. For instance, "Where did all of the events between the Shire and Bree go?!" The DVD will most likely contain those scenes and many other which were cut from the theater version.
Of what I did see, many of my favorite parts of the story were missing, such as the part mentioned above and the "Blindfolds" in Lothlorien. The biggest problem I had, though, was not a story problem. It was the poor cinematography. If I am going to pay over $8 to sit in an uncomfortable chair for 3 hours, I want to see something good. I want to see the results of a cinematographer and a director pushing the limits of their art, not just some nerds wagging their big, fast computer graphics in the air.
Some scenes were very well done though. The Balrog looked excellent and Gandalf's dialogue on the bridge was one of the few scenes which were dead on. This scene really makes me look forward to "The Two Towers" when we will see the battle of Helm's Deep and the Seige of Isengard where there should be tons of similarly well done CG creatures (Ents in this case) doing battle.
Overall it is a good movie that you should go see (hopefully without a bunch of screaming homophobes in the theater laughing the whole time Frodo and Sam are together), but don't expect to be thoroughly moved by the picture as a whole.
On a different note, the reaction of IMDB users to this movie really amazed me. As I write this it is 6 days after the film came out, and 9662 users have voted with over 78% of them voting 10. This has resulted in the film being rated as the #1 movie of all time. It is incredible. As history has shown, though, movies tend to move to more reasonable positions over time, such as The Matrix being in or near the top 10 when it came out but being #38 now. I believe this film will stay in the top 50, mabye even in the top 30 for quite a long while, but I would venture to guess that it will be out of the top 10 by Summer 2002.
Thanks for listening to my opinion,
Jarrod Lombardo