Rating: 
Summary: A real good movie from a real good book...
Review: What can I say? The hype was out last December that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is being released. The first part this month. I saw it get fairly good reviews from the critics, and being a massive fan of the books I hesistantly went to the theatre, not wanting to destroy my image of the book. Boy was I glad I went! The movie starts off quite quick, giving you a solid history base and a fairly onimous warning about what will happen next, as well as some geography. Then, it REALLY slows down introducing Bilbo, Gandalf, and Frodo, as well as brief appearances from Sam, Pippin, and Merry. The home of the hobbits (all the characters mentioned with the exception of Gandalf)is in a free land called The Shire, reminiscent of England. The party at Bilbo's place is where it started to speed up. Bilbo (at his 111st birthday) uses the 'Ring', an ancient power devised by the evil Sauron (kin of Gandalf; a quick fact for those who have watched it)-and had found it on his travels- and became invisible and sneaked off to his house. Bilbo met Gandalf, the wizard and agreed to head off to the elf settlement of Rivendell near the mountains. Frodo, Bilbo's cousin, is entrusted the Ring and vows to keep it a secret until Gandalf comes back, for he does not know it is This Ring, the most powerful of them all, made by Sauron. He searches through ancient documents and discovers that his suspicions were true, and bustles Frodo and Sam, his friend who was snooping, off to Rivendell. Gandalf goes to his ally, the wizard Saruman, for aid. On their way to Rivendell, they meet the two troublesome hobbits Pippin and Merry. They help them on their quest. They reached a town called Bree, without some danger because of the servants of Sauron -the Ringwraiths or Nazgul-, but they get there and meet Strider, a Dunedain, (the remnants of the ancient men who settled in the Shire formerly)and he befriended them and helped them on their way to Rivendell. After Frodo was posioned from one of the Ringwraith's blades, they finally take care of the Nazgul (for now, they are immortal) courtesy of the magic of the elves and the Master of Rivendell, Elrond, heals Frodo of his ailment. There is a council, with Gandalf there and tells of the treachery of Saruman, who has turned evil. Gandalf just barely escapes. They all decide to take the Ring to Mordor, the stronghold of Sauron, for only there can it be unmade. The four hobbits are accompanied by Gandalf the wizard; Gimli the dwarf; Legolas the elf; Boromir the human from Gondor, the country of men in the South; and Aragorn a.k.a. Strider, a man that has lived in the wild all his life and is seemingly more than a woodsman. This is only half of the movie, the rest you have to see for yourself. The Fellowship of the Ring, as the movie is called, is a masterpiece in its characters, its unique storyline, its well developed geography, and its through special effects, amazing cinematography, make-up, and excellent battle scenes. The pace starts at mundane then picks up to a convincing climax, but remember, there is still two books to go! This is a must see and I highly recommend you get the movie!
Rating:
Summary: Simply Beautiful
Review: The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring is a beautiful adaptation of Tolkien's book. The acting is superb, especially Ian McKellen as Gandalf. The special effects are great. The dialog rich and beautiful. I can't wait for the second part The Two Towers.
Rating:
Summary: A Truely Amazing Effort
Review: Considering the difficulty of these books, it would be a monumental task in bringing them to the screen. In my opinion Peter Jackson has done it and done it well, at least in the first installment.
The acting - for the most part - is good and he did well in choosing Ian Mckellern as Gandalf. The film takes you to a breath-taking middle earth - Well New Zealand actually - and the dialogue is only slightly contaminated with modern phrases. The action is good, and time is taken to build up plot and characters. Jackson evidently has great love for the
books and it shows. This is a labour of love and dedication.
You could do a lot worse than buy this film - see in at the cinema if you can , it blows your head off - I look forward to parts 2 & 3 with anticipation.
Viewers who are not familiar with the books should be warned that this is the 1st installment of a trilogy, a trilogy that was originally meant to be one book by the author but was broken up by the publisher. So be warned, the film does not have a 'traditional' ending; but it does not suffer for this, in fact I found it refreshing from the normal hollywood three act "fast food films". This however is not to everyones taste.
It was no mean task to convince the studios to part with 270 million dollars to create a nine hour film AND stay true to the spirit of the book. In my opinion he deserves an oscar just for that. So instead of 4 stars I gave 5.
Rating: 
Summary: A Wonderful Movie!!!
Review: This is the movie for you if you like fantasy and the world of 'knights', wizards, elves etc... The setting, actors, technical parts were superb. The hobbits, are the main characters in this movie. Hobbits are peace-loving 'little' people. It starts in the Shire where Frodo, the main character who is a hobbit lives. Frodo's father, Bilbo, stole a magic ring from Gollum (a frog-like creature). Bilbo then goes on a trip and leaves the ring to Frodo. Gandalf the wizard comes to warn Frodo, that the ring's maker, the evil Sauron wants it back and Frodo is in great danger. From here the real action of the movie starts as we see Frodo and his friends trying to get to Mount Doom to destroy the ring. An exciting and intriguing movie to watch. Things will get even better with 'Two Towers,' the sequel to "Lord of the Rings."
Rating:
Summary: One of the Great Movies of Our Time!
Review: Like the title say's, this movie is one of the best. It may be the best movie I have ever seen, although it is far from perfect. Peter Jackson did an excellent job on this movie and deserves every award he recieves. The only complaint I have is that some of the key story elements were left out like the hobbits meeting's with tom bombadil and farmer maggot. But, it is still an excellent movie that everyone should watch. I encourage the people who have seen the movie to also read the books. The acting was pretty good. Sean Astin played sam perfectly in my opinion. Elijah wood could have been a little better but he had the toughest role to play. Overall a great movie!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Movie!
Review: This film is a wonderful, classic fantasy masterpiece! A must-see for people who can appreciate the brilliance of Tolkien. If you read his books then you will surely applaud this movie. No doubt one of the best mythical fantasy movies in my list!
Rating: 
Summary: Not so good
Review: Though the movie is better then the books, I would still rather go to the dentist then watch it again.
Rating: 
Summary: The world has changed
Review: Tolkien's book is a masterpiece. Attempts to adapt it to film have tremendous obstacles. Even attempting to fit it into 3 movies is a daunting task. Many aspects of the book, the languages, song, and detailed history that makes gives the book depth and background, just do not play. Wisely they are mostly left out of the film. Instead we are treated to Frodo offering the ring to various good people, who pass the "test" by explaining why they refuse it. One hopes that will not be continued. Tolkien placed the book as a pre-egyptian prehistory, but that is a ruse. Rather it occurs out of time, out of place, as the old Welch sagas. Each major culture has its own time frame. The Hobbits have clocks and use matches (Victorian) The Breelanders at least have inns and beer (rather 1700s) and as the journey continues, the production continues to go back in time. The producers wisely did not try to update it to gothic or heavy metal, but settled instead on fitting everyone into a dark ages to medieval time slot. The sets are luscious. I almost long to transplantto New Zealand! The combat scenes make rather good sense of the rather muddled and ambigious descriptions in the book. Well done. If you have read the book, you will follow the movie. My friends who had not (and they are my friends none the less) were confused at the ending. It is one third of the way through. It is not a happy story, but rather an heroic epic, and such things have gone out of style. Modern folks seem to debate whether we should destroy our "Dark Lord", even when we have the power.
Rating: 
Summary: Not For True Fans
Review: As a long-time reader of The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and all of the supplemental works, I can honestly say that I was extremely disappointed by Peter Jackson's version of the Lord of the Rings. To start with, many unnecessary scenes were added to this film that were not in the original text written by JRR Tolkein. The fight scene between Sauron and Isildur, where the ring was lost for a time, was not in the book at all, except as a short narration by Gandalf. Another fight scene which was only a brief narration in the book was the fight between Gandalf and Saruman. Throughout the movie Peter Jackson has seen fit to add in material which can not be found in Tolkien's original writing. Jackson also goes too far by removing some of the best scenes in the book. The pride of the elves, Lorien and Galadriel, have virtually no screen time at all. The Dwarven dark failure, Moria, is a muddled run through some caves with little comment on their history. The views of daily life in the Shire are cut to nothing at all. In fact the entire journey to Bree takes moments of screen time, removing entirely the wonder of what a grand journey these hobbits are taking for the first time. The hobbits instead creep from shadow to shadow and rely entirely on the humans to cart them around like baggage. In the end the movie follows the Holywood formula of promoting style over substance. It shoves aside the central point of the novels, which is the meek (the hobbits) growing into their own, for that of violence and flashy special effects. I know that this film was enjoyed by many, but I feel that the true fans of the original novels will be truly disappointed with the mess Peter Jackson has made of these classic works.
Rating:
Summary: Great Movie, Bad DVD
Review: Don't get me wrong, I love this movie. The writers took a long-winded book, and turned it into a fast-paced, gripping film. My problem isn't with the movie, it's with the DVD. Why do we buy DVD's instead of Videos? Okay, the picture is better, but the main reason I buy a DVD is for the extras! This DVD had crappy extras. No extra scenes, no revealing anything. The extras are little more than the trailers that we all already saw in the movie theatre for months leading up to the big sceen launch. Okay, but the movie's still great, isn't that enough reason to buy the DVD? Not in this case. Apparently they are releasing another version of this DVD in November with new extras! So I guess this release was just aimed at the impatient suckers like me!
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