oh my gawd

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2001)

a true masterpiece, LOTR goes beyond most expectations.
(may contain some light spoilers) Well, first things first: I loved it. it is, without a single doubt, truly the greatest fantasy movie ever... a little hard to digest for most of the people who are not familiar with the genere, but for a Tolkien freak like me, it was pure, clear, flowing liquid visual bliss. Sure, it is definitely not up to the standard of the books, but like a friend once said, the only way to make a perfect translation of them to the screen would've been to film every page turning around. Being objective, and analizing just the movie, not trying to compare it with the books, I give it a 9.7 on a scale from 1 to 10.
The prelude was beautiful, yet i wished it had spent more time with the forging of the rings. Sauron is THE ultimate badass, not the generic "evil overlord" that I had imagined from one of the last TV commercials... he exudes a real aura of peril and fear. The Shire is paradise, 'nuff said.
One serious flaw of the movie is how distances are managed, that is in my humble opinion, why the pace seems rushed to most of the viewers. Middle Earth looks real, but way to small... PJ could have used the "travel map" cross-dissolve effect that is used on the Indiana Jones movies, specially with Gandalf's trip to Gondor and Isengard. The moth thing is just weird...

All of the SFX were great, they made me belive that what I was seeing was real. Not at one point in the movie did the CGI made me loose the suspension of disbelief, WETA kicks ILM's butt. The Balrog is great, a demon of shadow and fire indeed, with it's smoky and subtle wings of enveloping darkness... the face full of supernatural rage... fiery eyes and mouth, the curly black horns... yeah
Arwen works wonders for me, although I see no reason why Glorfindel had to be cut. Elrond is a bit too uptight, and has become one of those actors that you can't help but remember their previous roles as soon as you see their faces(kinda like what happened to Jim Carrey)... I was thinking he was going to make some comment along the lines of "okaaay MR.Andersonnnn" all the while he was on screen. But this doesn't mean he was a bad actor... just that I couldn't shake off the impression he left from Matrix.
Lorien, is the weak part of the movie, for all the reasons stated by many others. Still, it's not THAT bad... just incomplete.
Oh yeah, the movie is too short give me a 6 hour epic dammit!!

I'll post a more complete review once I see it again and have rested... 'night all!