Very good... but slightly overrated 8.5/10

Rating: 9/10 (18 December 2003)

I was able to see this film at the Midnight premiere on Wednesday morning, before it hit the theaters. While I did enjoy the film a lot more than The Two Towers, Fellowship of the Ring is still the best film of the trilogy in my opinion.
***** SPOILER ALERT *********
Pros :
Great battle scenes
Sean Astin was flat out amazing as Sam
Gollum was great
The army of the dead was very cool
Aragon finally accepted his role as king.
Arwen and Aragon end up together
Cons :
No Christopher Lee!!! - He was such a huge character in the two previous films, and in Return of the King, he was simply written off because he had lost his powers.
I was also disappointed with Sauron. He is the driving evil force for the whole trilogy, and he went down so easily. He stayed trapped within the magic eye. I would have loved it, if Sauron would have manifested himself so that him and Aragon could have fought it out. This would have symbolized the ultimate battle for good vs evil perfectly. The sword that was responsible for destroying Sauron was reassembled in Return of the King and given to Aragon to fight with in battle. It would have been very fitting, if Sauron would have had to battle the sword once again. Then just as the ring is destroyed, Sauron is defeated by Aragon.
My biggest complaint about the film was the ending. It was extended unecessarily by at least 20 minutes. The perfect place to end the film, would have been when Aragon said that Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Meri bowed to no one, and the camera pulled back to show the entire crowd near the castle. Instead, it just kept going and going and going with constant tease after tease. That kind of slowed the pace of the film down for me.

Overall :
The film is not perfect like people are making it out to be, and the film is slightly overrated. But the film is very enjoyable, and provided for a marvelous film going experience. Peter Jackson should be proud of himself, because he did the impossible of bringing Lord of the Rings to the big screen.
How I rank the Lord of the Rings trilogy :
Fellowship of the Ring = 10/10
The Two Towers = 7.5/10
Return of the King = 8.5/10