Subject: Review: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001)

From: Christopher Null <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 03:28:40 -0000

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING 
A film review by Christopher Null 
Copyright 2001 filmcritic.com 

You think Harry Potter had expectations?  It's a beloved book, sure, but 
it was published in 1997.  In 10 years it will be as forgotten as The 
Bridges of Madison County.  But J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings 
dates all the way back to 1937, and it's taken all these decades for 
someone to even attempt a live-action recreation of the trilogy of 
books.  And not without reason. 

How do you satisfy a legion of fans, some of whom have been waiting 
almost 65 years to see their absolute favorite work of literature put to 
film?  More often than not, you don't, and though Peter Jackson's 
production of The Lord of the Rings is painstakingly faithful and 
earnest, it is almost a foregone conclusion that the movie will never be 
good enough for the obsessed fans (see also the 1978 animated Lord), 
just is it will be far too obtuse for those who haven't read the books. 

For the uninitiated, The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy of books that 
occur 60 years after the events of The Hobbit.  A hobbit (read: little 
person with hairy feet) named Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), nephew of the 
famed Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm), is entrusted with a mysterious ring when 
Bilbo opts to take a permanent holiday, fading away from society after 
111 years of life.  How'd he get so old?  That ring isn't just a band of 
gold.  It's a magic ring forged of unspeakable evil -- evil that has 
finally awakened after centuries of dormancy... and now it wants its 
ring back. 

Of course, if that were to happen, you know, we'd have a reign of 
terror, end of the world, or some such stuff, so it's up to our 
miniscule hero and his band of merry men to do something about it.  At 
the prodding of the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen, very aptly cast here), 
Frodo embarks on a quest -- first to get the ring far away from his 
peaceful home, then eventually agreeing to destroy it in the volcanic 
fires in which it was forged.  He finds aid in the form of a band of 
unlikely henchmen: a few hobbits from home, including his best pal Sam 
(Sean Astin), the aforementioned Gandalf, a sophisticated elf (Orlando 
Bloom), a mean dwarf (John Rhys-Davis, wholly unrecognizable), and a 
couple of tough humans (including one who just so happens to be a king 
in exile (Viggo Mortensen)).  And along the way they encounter bad guys 
sent by the evil Sauron (mostly a bunch of grotesque creatures), and 
good guys that help them out (mostly a bunch of elves, including 
characters played by Hugo Weaving, Liv Tyler, and Cate Blanchett). 

Will Frodo and his friends succeed, destroying the ring and saving the 
world of Middle Earth?  Well, not in this movie, they won't.  Though The 
Fellowship of the Ring is three hours long, we've still got a good six 
hours to go before any of this gets resolved.  Purists are going to love 
the drama.  Your average moviegoer is going to wet himself. 

To be sure, Jackson (director of numerous cult flicks and one of my 
favorite films, Heavenly Creatures) goes out of his way to make The 
Fellowship a film for the Tolkien-obsessed.  Throughout the production, 
he has collaborated in depth with the fan base, though I imagine there's 
only so much fan interaction one can take before going completely 
postal.  And in fact, some fans are still unimpressed -- one fan Web 
site even tried to launch a petition to get the studio to change certain 
details about Liv Tyler's character, citing a long list of reasons. 
Imagine their surprise when they discover she only has about five 
minutes of screen time, anyway!  (Also by way of side note, the 
controversial theory that Sam is gay and is in love with Frodo gets 
considerable play here -- all that's lacking is a liplock and it's a 
done deal.) 

Now it's been a decade and change since I last cracked open a Tolkien 
book, but from what I remember, Jackson has treated the source material 
with considerable faithfulness.  Ironically, this may work against the 
film at the box office -- with all the genealogies and more races than 
you can count (and will the average moviegoer understand that hobbits 
and halflings are the same thing?), Peoria may not be willing to suffer 
through three hours of an elaborate fantasy world just to be given the 
message that, well, power corrupts. 

Of course, The Lord of the Rings has been billed as an effects 
extravaganza, but overall, these are a considerable letdown after such a 
massive buildup.  While the hobbitization effect -- which takes 
normal-sized actors and digitally shrinks them down to appropriate size 
-- is alarming at first, eventually you get used to it (though Astin's 
ringlets and chubby cheeks are just plain creepy). 

Hobbits aside, it's the obvious digital backdrops that start to wear you 
down.  Our adventurers set out across countless picturesque vistas -- 
but when these are left untweaked, they look strikingly like New Zealand 
(where the film was shot).  To offset this, Jackson inserts outrageous 
monuments into the background to build a fantasy world.  When he adds 
simple ruins or rocky outcroppings, it works fine, but when it's an 
entire phony city, it just isn't believable, and that pulls you out of 
the story.  If I see another movie (Star Wars: Episode I and Gladiator 
also abused this to an extreme) where a few digital birds go flying 
across the digital sunset over the digital buildings again, I'll puke. 

While the film is studded with action, the fights are not particularly 
well-choreographed, either.  You don't get a good sense of scale of the 
big battles, and the in-close fighting is edited to frantically to 
follow well.  (Thankfully, there are no Matrix-rip-off wire-flips or 
time-stopping tricks!)  The exception to the rule is a fight between the 
gang and a giant troll, deep in the Mines of Moria.  The troll is one of 
the best CGI monsters I've seen on film, and his battle sequence is put 
together perfectly. 

This scattershot quality extends throughout the film.  Another example: 
The magic effects are alternately stellar and disappointing.  While 
Gandalf's showdown with the demon Balrog is arguably the film's high 
point, his skirmish with rival Saruman (Christopher Lee, bearing a staff 
with what I swear is a golf ball on top) is pretty lame -- two old 
geezers just pointing their staffs at one another, which sends the other 
one flying against the wall, over and over again.  It's hard to believe 
the sequences are from the same movie. 

With two-thirds of the story to go, it's difficult to judge the film on 
its own, so I'll be gentle this time out.  Suffice it to say that 
fantasy fans will enjoy The Fellowship of the Ring, but most moviegoers 
will find it overly long and just too exhausting.  Jackson may have some 
tricks up his sleeve for the sequels, but it's going to be tough for him 
to improve things much with The Two Towers, when the plot slows down and 
the highlight of the story includes an anthropomorphic tree.  I 
understand that making a movie out of a legion of people's favorite book 
means the opportunity for a director's interpretation is limited, but 
Jackson also needs to understand that for his trilogy to earn the title 
of epic it will require something more than simple length. 

RATING:  ***1/2 

|------------------------------| 
 \ ***** Perfection             \ 
  \ **** Good, memorable film    \ 
   \ *** Average, hits and misses \ 
    \ ** Sub-par on many levels    \ 
     \ * Unquestionably awful       \ 
      |------------------------------| 

MPAA Rating: PG-13 

Director: Peter Jackson 
Producer: Peter Jackson, Barrie M. Osborne, Tim Sanders 
Writer: Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson 
Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Liv 
Tyler, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, 
Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Sean Bean, Ian Holm 

http://www.lordoftherings.net/ 

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X-RT-TitleID: 1108476
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X-RT-RatingText: 3.5/5