The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Review

by Christopher Null (cnull AT mindspring DOT com)
December 5th, 2001
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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