Epic film making at its most spectacular.

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2002)

Director Peter Jackson has taken an `un-filmable' story and produced a true epic rich in the fantasy and myth that are inherent in the J.R.R. Tolkien books. There are naysayers out there that complain that the film doesn't follow the books  but it does  allowing for the vast scope and panorama of the original stories.
The characters look and act exactly as I remember them from the books and the settings and scenes are far greater than what my poor imagination was ever able to conjure up.
I was entirely prepared to not like this film; I was not completely sold on the first one. But Peter Jackson (director) and his wife Frances Walsh (screenwriter) have obviously poured their hearts and souls into this project  not to mention years of their lives and the effort shows.
There are so many sub-plots and interconnected stories that it is near impossible to keep them all straight  but the tightly woven screenplay and the brilliant editing make it all work marvelously. There is not a miss-step or false note in the entire film.
There were a couple of scenes that looked as if they could have been lifted right out of that other modern fairy tale: `The Wizard of Oz' but for the most part everything seemed original and fresh.
Howard Shore's original score adds greatly to the overall feel of the film. It rises spectacularly at peak moments with a chorus of thousands' lending their talents and subsides quietly at moments of peace and tenderness.
The Production Design and Art Direction (Grant Major and Peter Joe Bleakley, respectively) add to the grandeur and range that the film reaches for. The luminous cinematography by Andrew Lesnie (not to mention the spectacular New Zealand settings) enhances the mystical and other-worldly' quality that the films strives for and achieves.
This is a tightly woven piece of modern film making that should inspire filmmakers everywhere to strive for the best and hopefully, achieve it.