I'm sorry, Mr. Jackson...

Rating: 8/10 (22 December 2001)

Look out, mini-spoilers!
I, like many, read the books when I was younger and loved them. It has been several years, so I am not nit-picking details of the story. However, this film has problems.
I'll start off with the good, of which there was, to be fair, much. The acting was above average with standout performances by Ian McKellan as Gandalf and Cate Blanchett as Galadriel (She has such great presence! I was mesmerized whenever she was on the screen.). The locations and sets were lush and lavish. The action sequences were amazing in many parts. Stylistically, the director was hit and miss. Often Jackson's shots were wonderfully realized, well framed, capturing a moment beautifully. At other times they seemed to take more of a "here's a thing" approach (just point the camera at it) with all the style of an ambitious home movie (tilt the camera slightly and zoom in  I'm thinking of the goblin and dwarf skeletons mostly here). Positive stylistic standouts include Frodo's world when he dons the ring and Galadriel's moment of temptation to take the ring of power. The changes in the story only added drama and character. The subplot between Arwen and Aragorn is quite stirring. The themes of the corrupting power of the ring played prominently in the film, which fueled an effective moral struggle throughout.
To be fair, Mr. Jackson took on a colossal task that could never be perfect. The books are large and packed with characters and action. Even a three-hour movie was bursting at the seams to contain what Jackson included. Another element that soured my experience is that I viewed this movie at what may be the worst movie theater of its kind in the world, the AMC 20 in Independence, Missouri, at which I have never viewed a movie I wanted to see without some kind of problem. This go-around involved idiocy in the projection booth as the first half of the movie was framed so that we could only read the top half of the subtitles ("maybe Elven only uses the top half of words" remarked one of my friends), then it was "fixed" to show us the top part of the next frame at the bottom of the screen during the crucial Council of Elrond scene, and later adjusted to show only the top half of subtitles again.
It has long been my contention that good movies take their time, an option that may have been unavailable to this film due to the incredible scope of its story. But Jackson showed he could do this for the introductory Shire sequences, probably some of the more unimportant exchanges in the story. Once Gandalf goes to visit Saruman, however, the movie is off at breakneck speed, barely stopping to just be with its characters once in a while. Even rare moments of character development seem rushed as our heroes are quickly whisked away to the next chase/fight/escape. For instance, as a reader, my version of meeting Strider is far different than the film's. This is a scene that requires time. We need a moment free of rising action to hear the sounds of the barroom, feel Frodo's tension, take note of the mysterious man in the corner. Jackson's version runs in fast forward. It goes like this (to be read at high speed with no breaths): Hey, who's that guy, he's been staring at us all night, oh him he's a ranger, call him Strider, hey you guys are calling attention to yourselves, let's get out of here, I'm Strider *running*.
Obviously, going in, any director/writer/editor would know that time is a commodity in this story. This being the case, I have issue with some of the decisions made in this film. Much of the time, Jackson seems to be too in love with his sets and locations. Countless are the sweeping, spinning shots of characters trekking across ever-changing terrain or taking in magnificent vistas. With such a crunch for screen time, there were far too many. For instance, I counted three separate sweeping/spinning shots of the monolithic Gondor King statues (Yeah, Pete, we see 'em). Less is more. Give us a quick establishing shot and then be with your characters in their environment. We will figure out where they are, that it is beautiful and get more `precious' time with the characters.
The key to good moviemaking is providing information. Not too much or too little. Too little information: The Fellowship's trek. To the unread moviegoer, where is Rivendell in relation to Mordor? Where's Saruman? Where are the Misty Mountains or the random passes debated as possible routes in the film? A simple, quick lay-down-the-map scene would have provided this and created a real sense of quest for the audience. For such an awesome undertaking there was no beginning, no moment of anticipation of the long road ahead or the adventures to come, just a random scene with Bilbo and Frodo at Rivendell, and "we're walking."
Too much information: Reactions after escaping the mines. Two or three tear-streaked faces are enough (e.g. everyone's sad). An inventory of weeping characters we barely know set to melodramatic music is too much. As a side note, scores never bother me, but this one intruded into nearly every scene. It only works once with a soft melody offsetting a grisly slow-motion action sequence.
In summary, I found the direction to be oft inspiring, but at times heavy-handed (the score was perpetually so). An example is Jackson's repetitive trading of shots back and forth between the Fellowship paddling and uruk hai warriors running.
I probably took this movie more seriously than I should have, as I'm apt to do when presented with the screen adaptation of one of the greatest novels of our time. Most people that I've talked to found it `awesome!' I'll give it a `good,' a `worth seeing,' and a `better luck next time.'