Fantastically visceral. Now, where did I leave my brain?

Rating: Null/10 (5 January 2003)

I have read the books, three times each, thrice and thrice, the Power of Three, but I write not as a Tolkien scholar, nor as your middle of the bee-curve, "what's a book?" movie-goer. Nor even as an educated critic.
I write now as a confirmed escapist, one who - not so much would rather be there, but would rather be anywhere but here. One who is reasonably certain that they were born in the wrong world, and if only they could concentrate hard enough, surely it should be possible to launch fire from their fingertips? Someone who was always puzzled when the other kids failed to understand his witty one-liners, or realize that his peculiar expression was not a facial tick, but rather the hidden depths of inner-torment and a rage, a rage barely concealed and fit to burn the world, sort of thing.
So when I say this movie was fantastic, I am being context inclusive. True, no-one in *our* world would go prancing about in the wilderness, shouting defiant taunts and challenges where no-one but the wind could hear them... almost as if, despite the isolation, every moment of their lives were being captured on film. Because, in Middle Earth, every man, elf, dwarf, hobbit and tree is a hero, and such is how heroes behave.
We can forgive the constant aerial shots too because, in Middle Earth, they are aware of the stunning, breath-taking beauty and mystery of their land, they are never removed from it, and in their heads, their own heads, this is how they see their lives, a sort of panoptic hallucaegenia where every step rebounds in their imagination as it might be seen from the air by a drunk bird with an eye for action. Wizards are mysterious, orcs are foul, King's are brooding, swords are sharp and elves are consummate acrobats. It was all enough to bring a tear to an old geek's eye.
My only complaint is that the movie was very short. Only three hours long. A good book can last me a couple of days.
I'll give it an 8/10, because I'm a writer myself, and I would have done it differently. ;)