Too long and too over-rated!

Rating: 1/10 (9 March 2002)

First - I've never read the books. I've not seen the animated versions. I'm just about as much as a newbie as you can get. So - how does it stack up?
The good: I was worried about Christopher Lee doing the more physical aspects of his roll in Star Wars. Seeing him swing that big stick of his around beating up Gandolf put my mind at ease. He is going to rock so hard in Attack of the Clones.
I did like the look of the universe. The strangely gothic look of the towers and so on - kudos to the set designer.
The bad: I hated some of the fight scenes - A great majority of them were far too close to the action, making it impossible to see what was going on. Give me a wide shot of the action and let the choreography speak for itself. Learn from the HK directors and don't try and punch up your fight with funky camera work.
Paper thin characters - Not a single one of the characters has any back story at all. There is zero insight to what makes these characters tick - well, aside from the "Ring is Bad!" motivation. Why are any of them on this dangerous quest? Why were those two food obsessed hobbits along? Same thing with Sallah - he really didn't do anything to further the plot. Or Frodo's eavesdropping friend - did he even have any lines in the movie? Or . . . . well, you get the idea. The only one who gets fleshed out was the human guy from the tavern - there's something about a deposed king mentioned, but it's never fully explored.
I'm given to understand that the books round out the characters a whole lot more. Pity none of this made it over to the screen. I wish they could have trimmed some of the encounters and fleshed these folks out (The whole bit with the lady in white who turned into a scary person for a second could have easily been dropped in favor of character development. It didn't seem to move the plot along, simply telling us information that we already knew. "Ring is bad - must destroy it, else evil wins.")
I need a scorecard to tell everything apart - This isn't so much a problem with the way the movie was constructed, but more of a problem I had keeping up. Letssee, with dozens of characters introduced at lightning speed, plus a whole travel-log of locations, I found myself lost at times. There was Arrow Guy, Sallah, the Food Obsessed Comic Relief (or the gay hobbit couple), the Guy from the Tavern, and the Guy That Went Nuts at the End. Oh - and Frodo and Gandolf. Towards the end, Guy That Went Nuts and Guy From The Tavern were hard to keep apart. When he was attacking Frodo, I keep wondering "ok, now which one was he again?"

Strange plot developments - So, you have the Scary Black Horsemen and their initial chase of the hobbits towards the start of the movie. The good guys leap onto a raft and push off from shore. Here they are - not more than eight feet away, and the rider doesn't get them. What - your horse is afraid of water? The guy is under orders to get that ring at all costs and is afraid of getting his shoes wet?
Or the sworn protectors of the MacGuffin and it's owner letting them wander off by themselves to infiltrate the Tower of Evil? Hello - they'll get about three miles before both of them are killed and the MacGuffin falls into the hands of the bad guys. You know - end of the world? Game over?
Leaving the decision to go over the mountains or through the Caves of Death(tm) to the most inexperienced person in the party? What the hell was Gandolf thinking?
If the ring makes everyone who wears it invisible, then why didn't Saron pull a disappearing act when he wore it?
What exactly does the ring do? If it falls into the bad guy's hands, he rules the land with a thousand years of darkness - that much I got. But what does it do? Does it channel the wrath of god allowing Saron to slay his enemies? Mind control? Is it plans to a Death Star?
Where did the Scary Black Horsemen go? The start out as an foe with no pity, no fear and no remorse that will not stop - ever - until the good guys are dead. Then they just kind of seem to fall of the map after the encounter in the ruins and that river. It's kind of like forgetting about Darth Vader half way through Star Wars.
The bottom line: I almost enjoyed myself, but it was definitely designed for fans of the book, not Joe Six-Pack. It was certainly no Lost in Space or Batman and Robin to be sure. But is it the best movie ever? Hardly - Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, The Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, and Star Wars still all trump the movie - but it was a adequate waste of three hours.

(But please, of please make the next one just a bit shorter. My ass was so sore after the massive marathon in the theater seat.)