Never read the book.... LOTR hard to follow in places

Rating: 10/10 (21 December 2001)

***Spoilers!!!!***
I hate hype... Hype spoils movies...
Anyway.... Just saw the movie and I thought it was OK but having not read the book I found it quite hard to follow in places.
It seems to me that as a book adaption it probably rules!.... But as a movie in itself, I found that it was stunning in some places but sometimes stupid in others.
Some scenes dragged (a couple of the one on one talks were boring) and this ruined the urgency vibe that the movie had built up.
The music was alright in places (especially in the opening credits when the Lord Of The Rings logo shows -cool piece of music) but overall it didn't blow me away like Star Wars, Braveheart or Jaws music did.
The effects were absolutely cool and its great to see some make-up and masks again instead of just seeing stupid computer generated characters (ala ja ja binks). As people are growing used to computer generated crap it was good to see some older style special effects being used for this movie.

The main let down for me was the orcs... They looked great! Totally freaky and nightmarish but by the end of the movie I had the impression they were total wimps. If I was one of the fellowship I wouldn't consider them a threat. A huge group of them wasted like they were those wimpy robot things on that Star Wars phantom menace crap. And their tough leader has his head chopped off. Those guys should be called the keystone orcs or maybe the smurfs. And those rider guys spend all day riding round on their horses and they can't even chase that bird down whose holding onto a small nearly dead person.
Anyway... haven't read the book but still enjoyed most of the movie. Acting was OK but I thought the human guys were pretty crap...

7/10