Excellent

Rating: Null/10 (21 December 2001)

Considering the time and budget limitations of the movie format, this is a really good adaptation. It seems like it would be an impossible task to turn these books into films and include 100% of everything, "The Fellowship of the Ring" easily could have been two or three three-hour films. One can't help thinking that the director must be completely mad to take on the task. Where the movie excels is in bringing key scenes from the books to life, many uncannily close to what I and others I spoke with imagined would look like. Also, the various components that made up the film, costumes, props, music, special effects, speech, editing and "laws of physics" flowed together naturally without drawing attention to themselves.
It would be impossible for me to be objective about a film about "Lord of the Rings", such a beloved story to so many. I probably would have been happy just to see the characters on screen even if the movie had been awful, and would have given it a high rating anyway. If I wasn't so familiar with the storyline, the motivations, actions, and relationships of the characters in "Fellowship" might have been very confusing. I had high expectations and was not disappointed. I was surprised at how the film effectively conveyed the changing moods of "Fellowship" as the story progressed through the key acts. "Fellowship" is probably the slowest of all three books, leading me to think that the other films will be even more fantastic. I will view this film many more times. I hope this film does very well so that New Line will be more willing to release longer versions of the following two films to theaters.
I was surprised at the amount of screen time given to Bilbo's "back story", there's no way that "The Hobbit" won't also be made into a film at some point, because these films are going to make a lot of money.