The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring ****
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: J.R.R. Tolkien (books), Fran Walsh, Phillipa Boyens and Peter Jackson (screenplay)
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sir Ian McKellen, Sean Bean, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Ian Holm, Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett
Rated Pg-13 (intense battle scenes, and the fact that the filmmakers were faithful to the book)
Ross: “Hello? Didn’t you read The Lord of The Rings in high school?”
Joey: “I had (girlfriends) in high school.” – Friends
Wow. Wowie. Wowwowwowwowwow!
Hmmm... That’s not much of a review, is it? I should probably give some details and whatnot about what I thought of the film and why. And, I will.
If you’ve not heard of The Lord of The Rings, you’re probably not a geek. The classic epic is responsible for the world today. Wizards and dragons and elves and dwarves... these are all playable characters in the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game, played by geeks the world over. Geeks who also read The Lord of The Rings, and went on to form software and hardware companies and became very, very rich. If it weren't for the books and the RPGs, you wouldn’t be reading this review on your computer. I’m exaggerating, of course, but the books have had a massive impact on literature and popular culture. If it weren’t for LotR, we wouldn’t have Harry Potter. It’s that simple. Led Zeppelin would have had fewer things to write songs about, and I’m guessing that the crown wouldn’t rest heavy on Conan the Barbarian’s brow, which would mean that we would be a world without Arnold Schwarzenegger. The series is that big.
If you are unfamiliar with the story, here’s a summary. Long ago, magic rings were forged and distributed to the races of the world: three went to the elves, seven went to the dwarves, nine for humans and one for the Dark Lord Sauron. The One Ring was the most powerful, and, naturally, evil. After a massive assault by the races of Middle-Earth on Mordor, where Sauron ruled, the One Ring was lost. Eventually, it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit. Bilbo (Holm) passed the one ring to his nephew, Frodo (Wood). Now, the battle in which Sauron lost the Ring did not kill Sauron – he’s just been biding his time and regaining his strength, and wants the Ring back. The only way to stop Sauron from getting the Ring and taking over Middle-Earth is to destroy the Ring. The only place that this can be done is in the Cracks of Doom – Sauron’s basement. Hobbits are small and not very tough. Clearly, if Frodo is to destroy the Ring, he’s going to need help. Gandalf the Grey (McKellen), Frodo’s hobbit friends Sam (Astin), Merry (Monaghan), and Pippin (Boyd), the elf Legolas (Bloom), the men Strider (Mortensen) and Boromir (Bean) and the dwarf Gimli (Rhys-Davies) form the Fellowship of the Ring. 3...2...1... begin adventure NOW!
Ladies and Gentlemen, The Lord of The Rings is an epic, widely regarded as a classic of 20th Century Literature, and has been studied even more thoroughly than the Star Trek universe. You can buy evlish dictionaries, runic dictionaries, and chronologies and histories of Middle-Earth. Fans of Tolkien’s universe range from people who have heard of hobbits to people who speak high- and low- Elvish with equal fluency. If Jackson and company screw up, then they have lost their primary fan base with this series. Fortunately, they didn’t screw up. In fact, they did everything but screw up.
As always happens when adapting books for cinema, things get left out, things get changed and things get moved around. I only noticed one adventure that was left out and one scene that was altered. These abridgements were minor and didn’t take away from the story in any way.
One distinct advantage that cinema has over books is that movies don’t have miles and miles of exposition. Do a cut, show some things, bang – story told in 20 seconds, rather than five pages. Jackson gets a +2 bonus to adaptation from literature.
Honestly, I could not find anything to dislike about LotR. Not a one. Some purists may complain about Arwen (Tyler) being given a bigger role – to them I say “Shut up. Liv Tyler is wonderful to look at, and, besides, you’re not the only audience. There are people out there who haven’t read the books, and some who haven’t even heard of them.”
Gladiator may have re-introduced the old-style Hollywood epic to cinema, but LotR shows how it’s supposed to be done. Old Hollywood epics, like Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments and Spartacus were big stories that demanded big visuals. LotR delivers. Epics demand big special effects. Present and accounted for. Epics demand clear direction and acting. Again, it has it all.
Peter Jackson is the Kiwi version of Sam Raimi. Both started out in indie/cult cinema (Raimi with the Evil Dead series, Jackson with Dead Alive and Meet the Feebles). Both made a sudden leap into ‘legitimate’ cinema (Raimi with the fantastic A Simple Plan, Jackson with Heavenly Creatures) And now, both are directing all-but-guaranteed blockbusters (Raimi with next summer’s Spider-Man, Jackson with the LotR trilogy). Using a relative unknown to helm an adaptation of a classic is actually a good thing. A big-time director would be too tempted to put ‘trademarks’ into the film. Jackson is very much a part of a new ‘school’ of cinema. Naturally, when cinema first began as an art form, many directors were self-taught. They then passed this knowledge on to underlings, who carried on the traditions. Then true film schools were founded, etc., etc. In the 1970s, two new ‘schools’ of cinema arose – the film school student who loves movies, typified by Spielberg and Lucas, and the directors who learned how to make movies by making movies, typified by Scorsese and John Sayles (who both learned from B-Movie King Roger Corman). Beginning in the 1980s, yet another ‘school’ began to emerge – kids with cameras. These kids grew up to become Sam Raimi and the Coen (Fargo, O, Brother, Where Art Thou?, Raising Arizona) Brothers. Even though Jackson was half a world away from the kids with cameras ‘school’, he belongs with them. By making self-produced-written-acted-filmed-edited-everything-involved-with-the-film-films, the kids with camera school learned how to tell a story without wasting anything. This sort of economy is what an epic needs.
The acting is also very good. The casting was perfect. No one but McKellen could play Gandalf. While other actors could probably play Frodo, Wood has the right degree of ‘innocence’ needed for the character. Plus, there’s nothing like a fantasy film or a Star Wars movie for giving character actors and little people work.
This is a film that deserves to be seen. Don’t let the three-hour running time put you off. There isn’t a slow part in the film. It didn’t drag once. Besides, Titanic was over three hours, and you saw that, didn’t you? The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring is actually shorter, and it’s much better. Plus, there are two sequels!
As a bonus, if you'd like to know more about The Lord of The Rings, one of the better sites is The One Ring.net. Of course, you could always read the books.
