The fellowship to which everyone wishes they could be a member! (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (DVD))

Member Name: Martin52

Product:	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (DVD)
Date:	20/06/09 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantastic film, massive in scope and a great adaptation of the book

Disadvantages: You'll either love it or hate it

I recently had some visitors staying over at my house and, one evening, they were happily perusing my DVD collection whilst I was eating my tea, when I was somewhat startled to hear one of them say, "The Fellowship of the Ring, what's that all about then?". When I had finished choking on some cabbage, I tried my best to explain the film to her.

To start with, the story is set in a very different world from our own, or at least, in a different time period, which is undoubtedly where my visitor must have been living not to have known anything about this film!

I soon made the mistake of using the word 'fantasy' which, in retrospect, was always guaranteed to lead to a quick dismissal of the film by someone whose first thoughts upon hearing the word was to centre upon fairies and goblins. And, yes, all the stereotypes are here, simply because this was the first, and easily the best, of all modern fantasy stories. However, to reject the film on that basis is like refusing to eat caviar at a top London restaurant after sampling a portion of jellied eels on Southend pier!

To transfer the book onto the screen, whilst doing full justice to it, was always going to be an incredible difficult task and it is great credit to the director, Peter Jackson, and his team that they succeeded magnificiently.

This is the first of the three films and, realistically, must be watched first. It starts a little slowly but soon picks up pace and we are soon following Frodo and his friends as they are forced to flee from their homes and country to save themselves and, indeed, the whole world.

The scenery is absolutely fabulous and, unsurprisingly, led many to start to consider New Zealand (where the filming takes place) as a must-visit place.

Die-hard fans of the book might complain (and, in fact, regularly do) about the missing Tom Bombadil and Glorfindel, but the film certainly doesn't suffer from their omission. All the other well-known and loved characters are here and are reasonably well portrayed and acted by stars such as Sir Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett and Elijah Wood.

This film is an epic in all meanings of the word. If you can just suspend your
belief for a little while (this is fantasy after all) then I would be surprised if you did not enjoy this film and finish by desperately wanting to watch the next installment, being 'The Two Towers'.

Summary: First part of an amazing adventure story