Utter Disappointment... wait for video

Rating: 6/10 (27 December 2001)

After viewing Jackson's effort, it is evident the LOTR Trilogy will never be successfully adapted to the screen. This adaptation features painful melodrama, terrible character development, swiss cheese-like plot, an irrelevant score, overly grotesque monsters, overused special effects, nauseating camera work. The list goes on and on, where do I stop? I think the pros vs. cons ratio is around 1:4. It was nice of Jackson to try, but he probably shouldn't have bothered.
I love(d) the books, and was mind-numbingly excited to see the film. I was expecting to be amazed, but ended up bored. When I wasn't bored, I was baffled and annoyed by unnecessary deviations from Tolkien's original work. I realize that adaptations need to be made translating a book to a movie, but many of Jackson's changes are simply gratuitous and do nothing to advance the plot or the characters. In fact, the deviations actually detract from the film.
For those who haven't read the books, I can only imagine that they left the theatre, scratching their head, mumbling "what the f*** was that all about? what was the point of this scene? what was the point of that scene?"
I guess I'm just more upset that the film comes NOWHERE near the level of hype it received. Never have I been more let down by a film. 6 or 7 out of 10.
PREDICTION: `Fellowship' will rake in lots of dough because of the hype, but the next two will not break even. I wonder if `Return of the King' (the last film) will even open on 1,000 screens. Come back to me in two years, and tell me I was wrong.