Ash nazg grimbatul (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (DVD))

Name: mpeh

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Product:	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (DVD)
Date:	29/12/01 (480 review reads)
Rating:

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Always one (well usually one) to take objective criticism in the way it was meant and try to learn from it I have looked at the comments people have written and will try to address their needs and concerns. Originally I wrote that most people reading this will have read the book- apparently not true and so I will try to address more towards people seeing this as a movie in the first instance. Also I have for KFingleton (name dropping- heinous crime here on Dooyoo ooh the police will get me a load of NU’s for me) amended my final sentence. I have tried throughout this review to address myself both to those who have read the book (easy for me to do as I have) and those who haven’t. If I have failed on the second count firstly; apologies and secondly tell me exactly how in the comments and I’ll try to do better.

I like to think of myself as slightly cynical. Well actually to be cynical about things I like to think of myself as a hardened cynic and in order to do that realistically I have to take the view that I'm not really that cynical I just try to be. I am a Lord of the Rings fan, not a nut like some but willing to get into very daft arguments about how well I know the book or how much better it is than Harry Potter or some such. Being a cynic and a pessimist about all good things I saw the release of the movie as, potentially, a wonderful new lease of life for a book everyone ought to have read.

Now I'm that special brand of pessimist who carefully allows himself a small amount of optimism about a new product so that I can have a rising excitement of how good it could be, should be and would be if the world were just. This allows the come down after the (inevitable?) disappointment to be that much further and hence that much worse. So, being of this brand of pessimist, I thought that the cast sounded very good; Sir Ian McKellan as Gandalf could be wonderful. Elijah Wood I find a brilliant young actor (I'm so pretenti
ous- he's older than me) and so hoped he would do Frodo Baggins credit. So I carefully prepared myself for seeing this film, telling myself that I expected to be disappointed and not to get worked up about it. The word 'sacrilegious' was preparing itself for use in any reviews I gave.

Well we sat at the back of the cinema and watched the opening trailers nervously. When the film opened it was to stirring music, solid narration (only near the beginning) and an epic battle scene. There that ought to throw those of you who've read the book. To say the least I was not disappointed. The film did the book justice. There were three things in three hours that didn't sit well with me, three things and they 'didn't sit well' they certainly weren't heinous crimes and so my cynicism wasn't being rewarded (which is a good thing just in case you were wondering).

As a film for people with no prior knowledge of Tolkien: Well basically there is a world called Middle Earth populated with Elves, Dwarves, Men and Hobbits. Elves were the mighty of the first age, now a fading light in the darkness. Dwarves also were mightier in the past but now Men are coming to the fore and as they do the world changes around them. Magic abounds in tempered mythic property. Rings of power were forged to aid the various races in their tasks. In the last age a dark power rose, one who deceived the Elven smiths and stole their wisdom. Using it he forged a ring to rule over all the rings of power, to twist and corrupt and ultimately to bring him to power as an evil overlord of all Middle Earth.
“
Three rings for Elven kings, under the sky,
Seven for Dwarf lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for mortal men doomed to die,
One for the dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie.
One ring to rule them all,
One ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all,
And in the Darkness
bind them,
In the land of Mordor, where the shadows lie.
”
Hobbits are a race small in stature living in a secluded pocket of land in the west of Middle Earth, peacefully removed from all the happenings of mightier folk and completely ignored, indeed most of the world is unaware of their existence. One however comes into possession of this one ring and upon the discovery of what it is must deliver it to the councils of the wise so that decisions as to what must be done with it can be made. The film follows the fate of the ring and it’s bearers as they journey from Hobbiton in the shire to the ultimate end. Set against a backdrop of war, terror and treachery the film explores the concepts of strength through friendship and growth of personal strength via hardship and the shattering of innocence.

The journey is both an adventure story with action, heroes, monsters, wizards, advisors and comedy and a sensitively filmed account of the way people thrown together in difficult situations can bond and create friendships. Where a lot of films (especially Hollywood) would shy away from the threads of love and brotherhood that flow throughout the book Peter Jackson (director just in case you didn't know) happily tackles all the depth of emotion, hardship and growth that make the book such an inspired piece of literature.

Almost every decision that has been made in the production of this film is right. The ambience, that essential and so ephemeral integral part of any good film, was nailed down right from the start with a combination of good acting and well chosen (or composed) music.

I want to try and review the film well without giving away the plot. I realise many of you (probably most of you) will have read the book first and so know the entire story, some of you almost word for word but I have to write this assuming that some people who read it will not know the plot(s). It's also hard for me to review this from
any other standpoint than that of someone who had read the book before seeing the film and I need to try and do that but also to review it purely as a piece of cinematography.

Firstly for those of you who have read and love the books this film has been made by one of us- someone who loves the Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson has carefully crafted his vision of Tolkien's creation and the effort and love that have gone into the production of this movie show, in fact shine through, from the very first scene. Each of the characters is portrayed carefully and colourfully, sometimes changed slightly from that written in the book but usually pretty faithfully adapted.

The film follows the first two books making up 'The Fellowship of the Ring' very closely. There is some editing at the beginning to make the film fit into three hours and the section through the wood and Tom Bombadil's house is cut out completely. There that tells people who know things that won't harm their enjoyment and people who don't know nothing. It starts right at the beginning with the party and ends at the end with the sundering.

As I said almost everything in this film is superb. The acting is very good from all the cast. The relationships are built carefully both in the script and in the way the actors deal with each other on camera. McKellan does indeed make a fantastic Gandalf and manages to convey the humour and deep affection for the world that his character has as well as the huge gravity of his immortality and task on Middle Earth. Merry and Pippin are portrayed less as nobility (as in the books) and more 'country bumpkin' although that is over stating it. They are used to inject some humour and hence make the serious even more so, very subtly and very effectively. Their relationship also grows over the course of the film. Sam and Frodo are inspired, they bounce well off of each other and react to the fantasy world around them so c
onvincingly they could well be up for Oscar nominations (if films such as this got nominations such as that). This is the best thing I've seen Elijah Wood do, and that is high praise indeed. For those of you who have read the books Frodo is portrayed here perfectly, with the feeling and depth and room for growth and development of the character that is so necessary in this first part of the trilogy.

The other four members of the fellowship have smaller parts in this movie which will be developed suitably in the next ones I assume. Legolas is well captured and the mixture of age, maturity and youthful vigour, the dichotomy between depth and sorrow for the past and joy at the world, a difficult thing to bring to screen, is played excellently. Gimli epitomises dwarfdom for me, his gruff tone and bluff exterior hiding the true heart within and John Rhys-Davies (I hope I've spelled that right, the large man from 'Sliders') was a perfect choice for the part. As was Sean Bean for the part of Boromir. It would have been very easy for him to be played just as a bad guy- a manipulated weakened man, but due to good writing and acting the character retains all the depth he has in the original text and also has believable relationships with the other characters. Vigo Mortennson as Aragorn is sublime. He plays the loner, the hidden self conscious hero, so well that I will now see movies just because he is in them. He's joined my list of names like that- Patrick Stewart, Anthony Hopkins, Brad Pitt...

The costume in this film is also brilliant. They have taken period costume and adapted it to the movie. Every extra has the same level of detail as each of the leads, everything is done accurately and best of all throughout the movie things get dirty, battered, broken, replaced and lost. The group look seriously dishevelled after each fight scene, and so does their equipment. The action sequences have been shot in such a way that you gain a feel
ing for the chaos of close quarters combat and yet can still follow the plot and the fate of the main characters.

The level of attention to detail in this film is superb. The sets are intricate and seamlessly used, you really cannot tell that various things are models added by computer apart from via analysing what can and can't be done physically. New Zealand makes a stunning backdrop to the action and fits with my idea of Middle Earth very well. It isn't forced on us and because everything is left not completely defined we can superimpose our own ideas of what we think/thought over what is on screen. The whole of the film is like this and this is one of the things I liked so much about it, because it is the film of a book, and not just any book but the most popular fiction book of the twentieth century (and hence surely all time), Jackson had to make sure that he allowed for different people's preconceptions of things and he did. Each of the set pieces was either done so well as to be forgivable if it didn't fit with your ideas (Moria for example) or was done so gently that, as I said, you could place your concepts over the top.

The Fellowship of the Ring only goes to show how far computer generated imagery in films has come in the last few years. When 'Phantom Menace' came out the computer techniques used in it were cutting edge, the very best available and anyone could see where reality stopped and computer graphic began. In the Fellowship of the Ring the hobbits are played by real people, real human beings and hence are too tall. A computer technique is used to shrink them to a more suitable height and I could not tell how it had been done or even really notice the edges of the computer technique. Some of the monsters are computer generated and I thought some of them were puppets of the Henson variety. Really. The digital stuff is seamless in every sense; it fits into the movie well, it is only used with care and discr
etion where necessary and visually you cannot tell when it is in use. Fine as a cinema going adult with common sense you know when computer imagery has been used but visually it is seamless.

There are a whole host of little touches that elevate this film from good enough to very good and beyond towards excellent. All this having been said this is not the best movie in the world- there are pieces of pure cinema that surpass it by far. I've done the unusual (for me) and gone too far with my praise- usually I go too far with my criticism when I actually like something. I do like this movie and was so relieved that it was true to the book and to Middle Earth itself in a broader sense. It has been made with passion and feeling and an understanding for what Tolkien achieved that outweighs the small list of bad decisions made during production. That said I don't want you to think that I think that this is the best movie ever made- it may only be one of the best book adaptations ever done. I can easily list five or ten films that are better cinema- Schindler's List, La Haine, Apocalypse Now... but they are movie classics and not really to be compared with fantasy romps such as this.

The small touches I was talking about that make this film so good are the things Jackson leaves unsaid. There is a scene in Rivendell where Frodo places the ring in the centre of a group of people, on a stone table and the discord and anger grows throughout the scene erupting into flared tempers, insults and physical threats. All the while this small golden ring is sat there in the middle of the picture and you can almost see it smirking. Perfectly in tune with the book and not spoon-fed to the audience left as a subtle indication of the ring's power. There are a number of scenes like this that afterwards you come out and think- that was clever, I missed that.

The only thing I can say is that I hope that the next two films live up to this one and do
it justice. They were all filmed at once over two years and so I hope it is not too optimistic of me to hype myself up for the others. This film was so good that I will go to the cinema and see it again just because I want to see it on the big screen again. I will buy it on video as soon as it's released and I will cry if the next one doesn’t live up to the heady promise this one has made to me.

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