I was impressed.....

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 2001)

Okay, I'm not a Tolkien fan. I've never read The Lord of the Rings or even the Hobbit for that matter. I went to the theater yesterday to see a matinee of this film. I had no high expectations of what I thought it should look like or be like or anything like that. I went in there with an open mind not knowing anything about Tolkien's world.
I was quite impressed. The film was able to capture my attention for the entire 3 hours and I was able to understand what was going on even though I knew nothing of the characters, places or events. Some of the editing was questionable, but it's not going to be the downfall of Peter Jackson.
I realize that something were left out and somethings were changed. I know that Tolkien fans can be very die hard and scrutinizing when it comes to their favorite characters. But in a normal adaptation of a book only five to ten original scenes from the book are used and everything else is created by the screenwriter. Taking that into account, I think Peter Jackson and the screenwriters did a fabulous job keeping the majority of the story together while getting rid of things that were not integral to the movement of the story.
I've heard some negative comments about the fighting. In a previous review a good point was raised, while we are use to high tech fight sequences like in the Matrix and Crouching Tiger the fighting style in this film is totally different. Think of how upset Tolkien fans would be if they used the same fight choreography in LOTR as they did in The Matrix, this would have been just another kung fu movie set in a time when there was no kung fu (anyone remember The Musketeer). The fighting was meant to resemble that of mideval style, basically the smash and grab tactic.
As a non-Tolkein fan I loved the movie and I will see many more times, and I might even read the books.