When I mentioned that I have not read Tolkien's Lord of The Ring (LOTR), jaws dropped. I knew I was missing a lot of thing. I engaged Mazlan, my working colleague, to narrate to me the story. Imagine the agony on his part. He has to summarise the whole goddamn 1200 pages (three books). Okay, no agony involved. He was in fact enjoying himself, and while he did, I was hooked. More than anything, I was really looking forward to see this film.

And what a spectacular the film was. I had always regretted that I had never seen many classics up there on big screen. Especially must see visual treat like Ben Hur and Star Wars. But I am glad that I was able to see LOTR on big screen.

LOTR does not need stars. It does not even in need of seam-bursting publicity. A single announcement could have the whole world talking. A vast majority of readers in the world have read Tolkien. They got the whole story, the world, the ambience right up there in their mind. Publicity was in their imagination. And with a film that delivers, it is heaven.

All the three books of Tolkien (this is The Fellowship of The Ring, the other two being The Two Towers and The Return of The King) have been filmed and the rest of the two are scheduled to be released at the end of 2002 and 2003 respectively. What remains are the post production works for the remaining two. Now, back to the film.

The world of Hobbit, dwarf, elf, sorcerers and what-nots comes alive in here. I have never seen CGI close to perfection (after The first two Jurassic Park movies) as seen in this film. Suddenly, computer has become an important tool for story telling. The images were suitably overwhelming, not showing-off as in other CG related movies. The performers lost themselves in this fantasy. They are not themselves, but the characters we had identified. It should be so, we still have two more movie and probably hundreds of rip-offs, and homages waiting in line.

I have a feeling that they will release the home video version before the second film is released on December 2002. I will watch it again and contribute more to this review. Honestly, I don't know what to write. I am that impressed.