Visually stunning, but seriously flawed.

Rating: 7/10 (6 January 2002)

The best film version of this story so far, but hardly worthy of being called the best movie ever made. The deepest flaw in the film is pacing. While the first half moves at a nice clip, it slows to a crawl at midpoint. Almost nothing happens in the last 20 minutes, and then it abruptly ends, with the story left hanging in limbo. The film doesn't stand on it's own. It's entirely dependent on the next installment. All that aside, there are scenes I found irritating. The battle of the wizards was lame and repeditive, throwing each other to the ground. The scene with the giant troll is just a big blur, with the camera constantly thrashing back and forth. It seemed to be a deliberate attempt to ovoid focusing on the monster, which was a weak element. If you removed all the shots of the ring itself, you'd trim at least 30 minutes off the running time. Why repeat the same footage of the severed hand three times? This isn't advancing the story line. There seems to be a lot of padding, with no dialog. I firmly believe this should be heavily trimmed to 2 hours. Then you'd have a more entertaining film, that kids could sit through. Now, in your mind's eye, picture a slow camera push, on the ring in Frodo's hand. Now repeat that a dozen times or so....