Magical movie-making

Rating: 10/10 (25 December 2001)

It has been quite a long time since I've headed into a movie theater with great expectations and been fully satisfied. I waited oh so long for the Phantom Menace to come out, only to get a harsh slap in the face. When I saw that LOTR had sold merchandising rights to Burger King it caught me off gaurd, would this film, like Phantom Menace, be a sell out job to make New Line a heap of cash? I worried, having read the trilogy, that a plethora of new plot twists and characters would surface to "Hollywoodize" this story. In not selling out or altering the story, Peter Jackson has become my new directing hero. Yes, the book is long-winded, and yes that translates to the film as well. People who wanted a nicely packaged fairy tale ending were all sorely dissapointed with this film. Half the audience in the showing I attended got up at the end and howled out such absurdities as "I can't believe they ended the movie like that." The fact that none of these idiots realized that this film was based on the epic Tolkien trilogy is beyond me. Also, the camera lenses and film used were perfect, instead of using the digital glossy crap that Bruckheimer and now Lucas use. Rarely will I give a film a rating of 9.5 or higher because in my mind everything has to be perfect (acting, set designs, wardrobes, dialogue, etc). This film has no flaws and thus I give it a rating of 10. I consider it one of the five best films ever made (right there with Lawrence of Arabia, Goodfellas, Amadeus, and Schindler's List).