Don't think about the book

Rating: 7/10 (16 August 2002)

It was a journalist for the Times that said "the English speaking world is divided into those who have read The Lord of The Rings and those who are going to".
I think the something similar can be said about this film. If you have read the Book then generally I think you will be disappointed with the film and if you have yet to read it the book will probably make you think the first in the Trilogy of TLOTR is a poor reflection of Tolkein's world.
So what I say is forget about the book. A film can never really do justice to your own imagination or the authors. So if you can watch this film and forget about a great book you have read then I think you can appreciate this film for what it is. A fairly good example of a fantasy film. The fantasy genre is littered with awful movies and this one is far better than most that I have seen over the years. The cgi effects are breath taking and the locations are fantastic.
However the film fails on several points. The action is so fast paced that there is no real time for any character development I left the cinema thinking nothing of the fall of Gandalf or Borromir. I found that I really didn't care about any of the characters. The Balrog scene although good was far to short.

I can forgive the makers in the fact that they were working to a fairly tight time limit. Fitting all that into 3 hours must have been hard but I couldn't get emotionaly involved and that left something wanting in my experience.
However I did enjoy it and gave it a 7 although how it got into the top 5 films I don't know. If anyone thinks this is better than Citizen Kane or 2001 they need their heads checked.