Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: J.R.R. Tolkien (novel), Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen

Its kind of unnecessary to reiterate the plot of Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring, so I’ll get straight to what I thought. I present to you, a review from someone who hasnt read the books:

The GOOD:

Very nice visuals, incredible landscapes, kingdoms. These worlds can’t be beat for their beauty. The hobbit world was less expensive by the looks of it, but was actually my favorite.

The introduction of Gandalf at the beginning of thefilm worked well. He appeared likeable, a character toreally get behind. His entire sequence with BilboBaggins was very good.

Bilbo himself and the development of his character over the short time he was in the movie was a highpoint. Hell, the entire opening narration sequence and the first twenty minutes up until the Wizard Fight scene were fantastic. Top notch.

The look of the creatures, especially Balrog, were very nice. Creatures to rival the apes in Planet of the Apes. Good job.

The Gollum was very neat looking, and seemed very interesting. It’s my understanding he will be more prominent in the next two installments.

The special effects when Frodo puts the ring on ie. the windy world – this is about as dark as the film really got in my opinion and these moments and the story with the Ringwraiths was about the last few moments I cared about the movie, which leads us to:

The BAD: (here’s where you all turn on me)

There are so many characters that they arent reallydeveloped very well. Gandalf gets more and moreignored as more people are introduced to the pointwhere I didn’t care when he died. Not at all. The newcharacters weren’t all that interesting, that is, asthey were called by the neighboring moviegoers (try toconnect them with their characters): Triple H, Jesus,Faggot Hood, Agent Smith, Professor Arturo, ArmageddonBitch, Goonies Fatty.

The Wizard Fight looked absolutely ridiculous.

So many closeups of the hand holding the ring. So many moments where characters look deep into each others eyes as they recite their lines in pseudo-Shakespearean manner. Boring.

Special effects when Cate Blanchetts character goes crazy – looks like Bride of Frankenstein.

So many color filters. what is this, Pitch Black? At least then they explained why this was going on!

The cheesy teasing at character deaths. Frodo almost died how many times? Its hard to take anything as a threat when you keep teasing that way, to the point where when Gandalf bit the big one, I didn’t believe he was really gone. Near the end there were more dragged out death sequences, to the point I was ready to scream “Will you just die already!”

The ring has a personality of its own, like the house in the Shining. That should be a good thing, but the ring doesnt become any more a threat by the end of the film than it already is at the beginning. Sad, because the ring had more personality than any of the other characters.

The comic relief wasnt very comical.

The overall story. I know odyssey movies, I like odyssey movies, and I’ve seen enough odyssey movies to spot a bad one. This one, is a bad one. When all is said and done, Peter Jackson will have spent 9 hours to throw a ring into a volcano. Its not easy to get excited about that. I’m not going to the next two films. I wasn’t rewarded for my patience with this film, when it was over, I and others sighed with relief, walking away with nothing. I spent the majority of the film with the famous line from the Simpsons in my head: “When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?”

I didnt find any of this underlying theme of spirituality that many told me about.

So now, maybe these Tolkien books are good. I dont know, I havent read them. Maybe Tolkien has a descriptive power or theres great dialogue and such that was clipped from the film. Perhaps this film is the dream companion piece that Tolkien fans wanted, a visual to go along with the descriptions – and the two help each other make sense. I know for example, that say, the Outsiders makes a hell of a lot more sense when you read the book. All I know is that as a person unfamiliar with Tolkien, I was not given the “new Star Wars”, I wasnt presented with characters I could get behind, and I wont watch this film again or go see any of the other installments. I’m looking around and I’m eeing more and more that I’m not alone, and this is indeed, like Titanic before it, one of those films critics think they’re SUPPOSED to like, and qualify their good reviews with the technical acheivements behind it, rather than by how much they actually enjoyed the film.

Thumbs down. — The Pretentous Goon

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