Expert film adaptation of the Book

Rating: Null/10 (29 December 2001)

Absolutely incredibly. My family members, none of whom have ever read a bit of Tolkien's work, absolutely loved this movie, as did I, and they are also fond of such hollywood garble as the common person. A very unique experience, and as my brother puts it, "it's like Harry Potter but for smart people."
They picked exactly the right details from the book to enhance upon, and usually, the perfect ones to remove, such as Tom Bombadil. Granted, he's a wonderful character, but he's something right out of a children's book. Like stated before, the Hobbits being eaten by tries and then magically let go through the singing of a strange goofy being about his Goldberry is just not something people accept nowadays, Elijah Wood or not.
The most common complaint is that coupled with the removal of certain scenes, the alteration of certain events(like having Arwen bear Frodo to Rivendell rather than Glorfindel), and the like. The casting was great, and it's amazing to see how closely the characters come to my mental images from the story and indeed, the images many of my friends also pictured for them. That just goes to show the skill of Tolkien in giving you 'detail' without 'going into detail', so to speak.
I have a few gripes however, which could easily have been remedied by the filmmakers and wouldn't have caused much problems. In fact I'm surprised no one noticed these particular peculiarities.
Gimli, where the heck is Gimli in the movie? The Legolas/Gimli relationship in the book, which was well on its way by the end of the Fellowship, is now 90% Legolas and 10% Gimli. Hopefully this was somewhat intended and they will pick up more on this in the next film. It was really sad to see such a great actor as John Rhys-Davies get so little lines in the film, when all his life he's been stuck with horror films and B movies, and now at his first chance to inspire awe in millions, they give him a whole 2 lines in the entire film!! Ah well, I just hope he gets more spotlight in The Two Towers, which Legolas certainly has had enough of!
Second gripe: the fight scenes. I think my eyes really started to ache at the end of the Moria battle. What is with all the camera action?? It was just way too fast; perhaps they wanted to show off the fact that "yes, we CAN have a computer image stay still when the camera is experiencing 10 on the Richter scale! YAY TECHNOLOGY!!" Sheesh. Anyways I hope they're a little easier to follow in the next film. The filmmakers could, for a change, take a few pointers from the Hollywood fight scene choreographers. Brave Heart, First Knight, and a slew of other Hollywood films, despite their flaws, had wonderful battle-filming techniques, which Fellowship seemed to completely ignore.
Third and last, yet the most minor: the fight between Saruman and Gandalf. Though no such fight took place in the book, or at least was said to have taken place, I'll say this once: if you're going to add brand new stuff in, do it right!! They accomplished this with the Riders chasing the hobbits throughout the woods and to the ferry, and with Arwen at the Fords. But with this fight scene, I'd say it was a bit off. Keep in mind that Gandalf has a ring of power, and that Saruman is the most powerful of all the wizards. This makes for a great contrast of powers combined with Gandalf's surprise and Saruman's jealousy. All we get is a few seconds of wall-crashing and that's about it. Ah well, my sanguinism was appeased at the Moria battle at least.
Overall, a great fantasy film despite its flaws. I've never seen one film without flaws, and this one at least has a chance to correct them in two future films!