Rating: 
Summary: Instant Classic
Review: Sprawling adaptation of the first of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy of science-fiction novels (and the first of a trilogy of films) that centre around the adventures of pure-hearted hobbit Frodo (Elijah Wood), who must undergo a journey to destroy a ring that turns its bearer towards the evil pursuit of world domination and destruction. In the first of the three films made from these wonderful novels, Frodo forms a group of friends who accompany him on his journey towards the destruction of the ring he has in his possession, but it soon becomes clear that the jewel's power over weak hearts is too much for them and they end up possibly endangering him more than helping him. Beautifully photographed and designed, the film benefits mostly from director Peter Jackson's perfect pacing that never allows the film's lengthy running time of three hours to ever feel tiring or overindulgent. Another plus is the absolutely perfect casting, with an all-star roster of talented actors filling in the roles that dominate Tolkien's imaginary world: Cate Blanchett as a powerful elf sorceress will actually stop your heart, Liv Tyler as an elf princess is stunning, and Viggo Mortensen and Sean Bean are terrific as the human men in Frodo's company who are probably the most susceptible to the ring's powers. Ian McKellen steals every single one of his scenes with his layered and gifted performance as the powerful wizard Gandalf, and the film is peppered with terrifying moments that you will never shake off before the whole adventure is over. Naturally, its being a part of a trilogy means that there really is no ending, but thanks to Jackson's incredibly good emotional structure the film has a healthy sense of closure before it ends, making the wait for the next adventure not so grueling (except for the fact that this movie is so good you will want the next chapter immediately!)
Rating:
Summary: Mind Blowing
Review: Staggering movie, gorgeous, just incredibley beautiful. Extended version conquers the theatrical version by a clean sweep-don't bother with the original cut. Easily the best fantasy movie I've ever seen, surpasses by leagues my old childhood favorites: Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back. It's silly to compare really, they're very different kinds of movies. But I can say, I haven't felt this excited about a movie since I saw Star Wars for the first time in 1977, at the age of 7.For book fans this cut is especially worth owning. It's like having breathtaking living illustrations as a supplement to the book. For me it doesn't spoil any of my own imagined images as I read the trilogy, it only inspires me to read them, again and again, for their incomparable depth of detail and weight of meaning. In my opinion the strengths of this movie far, far, outweigh any weaknesses or deviations from the book. We're experiencing a very special and rare moment in movie history thanks to Peter Jackson & Company's efforts. I was shocked, literally, how well Jackson,et.all did translating Tolkien to living images, most notably in the extended version. By so excellently bringing J.R.R.'s vision to the screen Peter Jackson has served us jaded moderns a sip from Tolkien's goblet: overflowing with beauty, myth, inspiration, magic, true and noble characters, filled with such deep enduring meaning it boggles the mind in what these days I experience as a largely desolate, mindlessly flashy, empty and money driven Hollywood landscape. Don't miss out on owning this, it's a treasure.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutly amazing!
Review: Stand back Harry Potter, here comes the Lord of the Rings! Wow! This movie took my breath away. My friends were begging me to see it. I thought it would ruin the book and not follow the story, but I under-estemated the movie. I love long movies, with good stories, acting and characters. This full-filled my movie desires. I plan on getting the DVD right when I see it in stores...
Rating:
Summary: The BEST ever--Period
Review: Star Wars, The Godfather...those are great movies but this the the best movie ever made. The 178 minutes fly by. If you've never read the books and don't know a hobbit from a rabbit, you will LOVE this movie. If you have read the books and can tell who the third king of Gondor is in the second age before the coming of the darkness of the west...you will LOVE this movie. Faithful to the book but not a boring attempt to cram in every detail, this epic captures the spirit of the book as no movie ever has (with the possible exception of the way "Gone With the Wind" captured that book). This movie stirs you, terrifies you, enchants you and thrills. The only draw back is having to wait for the other two movies' theatrical releases.
Rating: 
Summary: Powerful, imaginative and inventive film
Review: Staying true to it's origin, the first film of the first third of the Lord of the Rings is a powerful and visually inventive film. The battle scenes have all grit and gore that one would have come to expect. A huge improvement on Ralph Bakshi's animated travesty of the 70's, Peter Jackson manages to walk the fine line of being true to its source without pandering to the lowest common demoninator. Jackson's film manages to combine the best elements of previous fantasy films (which have borrowed liberally from Tolkien to begin with)and the source material to create a stunning, kinetic vision. Here's hoping that he can be as faithful with the second installment and manage not to lose his audience. Oh, and that's 4 1/2 stars for the film.
Rating:
Summary: All Right, Call Me A Geek
Review: Still speechless, I've seen THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING four times now. The film is cinemagic. Its scope is epic. Its delivery is perfect. The acting is unforgettable, and the story is timeless. Director Peter Jackson has created a singular masterpiece that, like CITIZEN KANE, CASABLANCA, and STAR WARS, will inspire hundreds -- if not thousands -- of creative minds to pursue interests in film and writing. His adaptation of the book (note: not a literal translation like the boorish HARRY POTTER film) almost cries out for academic study. Of particular note, Viggo Mortenson (sp?) is superb as Aragorn/Stryder. Of surprising pleasure, Elijah Wood brings a subtle intelligence to the role of Frodo Baggins, the hapless Hobbit who inherits the task of bearing the ring to the dark lands of Mordor. Of unyielding praise, Ian McKellan deserves an Oscar for his performance as Gandalf.
Rating:
Summary: Lord of the Rings
Review: Strider caught my eye. When I saw him at the Inn I knew he was a brave man. . . . He enjoys the battle. He lives to draw the sword. There is strength in the man's blood; I like him. The Elven princess also caught my eye. But it was not her beauty. When on her white horse she rides with Frodo to the river, then turns to face the enemy which had followed, then calls the water, her strength and companion, then draws her sword, looking like Joan of Arc as I imagine she drew hers, When she does this there is greatness on the screen. This part of the movie I enjoyed the most. But then there are Frodo and the others, for whom I have little admiration. A wizard? Magic? That is silly. An archer and a dwarf? All archers are cowards, and the dwarf with the axe is foolhardy, not brave. I am not impressed with fantasies. Why invent aliens and mutants such as these when we have ourselves? . . . To me the plot and most of the characters are silly. But I understand the imagination. That is, I respect it because it seems well-intended. It is good against evil and good prevails . . . of course, that is what will happen. A good though at times pretentious and silly movie. I enjoyed it, and I recommend it to everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: Stunning. Perhaps the best fantasy movie ever produced. Just got back from a 9 p.m. showing. I am not going to go into a full review of the movie, I could not do it justice. See it, you will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: such a great movie
Review: such a great movie, nuff said.
Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: Superlatives fail me. It took J.R.R. Tolkien fifteen years to write his opus 'The Lord of the Rings (LotR)', of which this particular film covers the first third, 'The Fellowship of the Ring (FotR)'. It took Peter Jackson, a New Zealand native, five years to bring Tolkien's work from ink and paper to the visual feast of film, condensing LotR's 300,000 words to three movies. Now, finally, FotR has arrived in the theaters for the Christmas season of 2001. Anticipation is huge - LotR is one of the most widely read books worldwide - as is expectation: Tolkien purists are an exacting, demanding lot, and while casting decisions and early imagery releases seemed to conform to that of the text, several interesting (and disturbing) revisions/changes also arose, leaving some sighing with relief and others gnashing their teeth at the prospect of a deleted Tom Bombidil or a beefed-up love story between Arwen and Aragorn. As someone who has read the book four times, I have to say that my expectations were probably as high as any, especially after watching the marvelous trailers for FotR. Thus, I joined an eager audience on Dec. 19th to witness this long awaited event, excited and extremely nervous - and luckily, I left my expectations at the door. The tone and dialogue of the prologue gripped me immediately, and though my inner purist had a couple gripes - where was Gil-Galad? - the emergence of Sauron, mace in hand, dashed my hopes and doubts with a brutal swing; and upon entering the Shire, all reservation was lost. The vibrant colors and earthy textures of Hobbiton; the stunning design; the deft characterizations --; all pulled me in, and for three short hours I was lost, completely and utterly lost, in this marvelous film. Afterward I reeled out of the theater with a dozen scenes fighting for dominance in my memory; through it all, I realized that this was near enough to the perfect adaptation for Tolkien's work. And having watched the movie a second time, I've come to the conclusion that Peter Jackson has not only faithfully reproduced all that *essential* to FotR, he has also improved on the book in several important ways. I do have a few nitpicks as well, but they stem more from the suits at New Line than the man behind the camera. What works: Pacing: Purists may disagree, but the pacing of the original book was rather flawed: conflict/tension is minimal and the hobbits seem more content to eat and sing than take the Ring seriously. Anyone who has read Christopher Tolkien's 'The History of Middle Earth' will discover that Tolkien himself had no strong idea of where LotR should go, thus the long wanderings in both story and prose before the other elements of the story come together. Heck, in the first couple drafts the ringwraiths didn't exist, Frodo was named Bingo (!), and Strider was a hobbit with wooden legs named Trotter (!!). -Given the enormous amount of exposition at the start of the film, Jackson's decision to excise Tom B, the Old Woods, the Barrow Wights and the dawdling therein, was a necessary one: film and writing are two different mediums, one must remember, and what works for one might not for the other, and vice versa. That said, Jackson did an excellent job of balancing the relevant information, character introduction/exploration, and action, all the while tossing in the odd tidbit for the hardcore Tolkien fans ("ProudFEET!"). Expanding the Moria and Amon Hen sequences helped raise the overall tension tremendously, another improvement on the source material: Tolkien was never much one for sweat-and-sinew action. Only the Lothlorian segment and a few of the traveling scenes are cut too close to the bone. Script: It took two years and three participating individuals to properly condense Tolkien's epic into a script format; the end result is a marvel, capturing the key dialogue of the book while making important and seamless improvisions on the material, mostly for the sake of humor and character development. Character Development: A massive improvement on the source material. Tolkien didn't so much write characters as he did archetypes. The movie gives them depth, emotion, conflict and nobility above and beyond the text. The entire cast of the movie is superb, yet even better is how each actor inhabits his or her character. Through speech and facial expressions, Sean Bean expresses the pathos of Boromir's inner turmoil; Viggo Mortenson manages, through subtle gestures, to show Aragorn's doubt, strength, and resolve; Ian Holm is Bilbo, pure and simple-in fact, all of the hobbits are well cast and seem to be true comrades, not actors pulling together for a paycheck. And the twin forces of Ian McKellen and Chris Lee as warring Istari blaze through the 16mm: Gandalf and Saruman, in character and conflict, are flat-out fantastic. The Score: I'll be brief here, as I plan on reviewing the score separate: suffice to say it is an elegant, subtle piece, highlighting the tensions and echoing the imagery without ever really calling attention to itself - it mirrors the peaks and valleys of the movie without exception - the true mark of a successful score. Well done, Howard Shore. The nits: Not many. Apparently New Line told Jackson to bring FotR to three hours, so as to guarantee a return profit and not scare away the uninitiated with an extreme viewing length. Thirty minutes were cut from the final director's cut. The sum and whole of my nits extend from these forced cuts. The film does feel 'rushed' in certain places, and the butchering of the gift-giving scene in Lothlorian is almost unforgivable - but hope is to be found in the upcoming DVD, where those 30 minutes will (MUST!) be restored. In conclusion, FotR was one of the most satisfying film experiences I've ever had, a rich, majestic interpretation that compliments and adds flavor to the original work. And this is only the beginning, folks! The fact that Jackson handled FotR, arguably the most difficult and slowest book of the three, this well shows that 'The Two Towers' and 'Return of the King' should really be something. A mere year will tell...but anyone who loves epic film and/or Tolkien should not be disappointed. Less than five stars would be an injustice.
|
