Fellowship was even better than I expected, and I was expecting a lot.
Sure, I have my gripes, but they seem like nitpicking in retrospect. Here are a
few notes:

• Everybody calls Sauron by name. In the book, few people are unwilling to
  say "Sauron" for fear of attracting his attention. Why would you change
  that?
• If directors are going to do arrows-in-flight shots, they should really look
  at some videos of
  arrows in flight first. It looks much cooler than anything I've seen in a
  movie.
• Why do fantasy movie archers always have to hold their bows sideways? It's
  just silly.
• Showing Sauron in full armor wasn't so bad and it seems like a nice
  compromise with just having Gandalf or Elrond tell the Isildur story with no
  visual.
• The fight scenes were great but it's too bad they succumbed to the trend
  towards jumpy, close-up camera work so it's hard to tell what's going on. I
  guess maybe that's necessary when you're working CG into fight scenes.
• I like how they beefed up Arwen as a character, she is practically
  non-existent in the book.
• I enjoyed everything from the Balrog on even more because it seemed more
  faithful to the book. I think that bodes well for the rest of the series.