Let me just start by acknowledging that I don't get out to see too many movies in theaters anymore, so this discussion may seem a bit dated. For some reason I have found it preferable to sit in my basement watching DVDs on my schedule while enjoying a beer or Scotch or both rather than trudging off to the local thirty-six screen megaplex to mingle with the unwashed masses. As of late I have been on a bad run with my film selections have endured the awful 'The Time Machine' and the sickeningly PC 'Hart's War' in the space of a few weeks. I had begun to lose faith in the ability of Hollywood to tell a story when a classic like 'The Time Machine' is so poorly done and a classic setting like a WWII POW camp is so misused.
Fortunatley the long but never dull 'Lord of the Rings' has restored my hope that a good story can still be told. I am not some kind of Tolkein freak and in fact have not even read any of his works, although I am now inclined to take them up, so I approached the film with no expectations other than to be entertained.
And I certainly was. The beauty of the film is that it completely allows you to wrap yourself up in it and forget the time and place you live in. Other than one humerous aside that references dwarf tossing there isn't some not so subtle modern day message that the film makers try to pound into your head other than the one that Tolkein originally intended. The story is the center of the film as it should be. While that doesn't seem like a lot to ask these days it can be hard to find.
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