Directed by:  Peter Jackson
Written by:  Peter Jackson, Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens
Adapted from the novel by:  J. R .R. Tolkien 
Starring:  Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Liv Tyler, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee
 

January 2002

         After sitting through the excruciatingly frivolously long three hour so called fantasy epic by lackey director Peter Jackson, not only was my butt and my patience numb, but The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring made me realize how much I truly appreciate George Lucas’s fantasy world and even Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. 
         Let me start off by saying I haven’t read Tolkien’s novel, but my contention is that any work being adapted to the screen should be accessible to a viewer not familiar with the original work.  While others talked up last year’s X-Men and how well it followed the comic, I thought it was the worst film of the year because the characters were so superfluous, the script was horrible, and the special effects horrendous.  I never read the comic and the film doesn’t work on it’s own, just like Jackson’s Rings.
         To start off, the main character, Frodo, played by a sedated Elijah Wood, has no personality.  He’s a hobbit and the only one who can touch the main ring and not be seduced by the dark forces.  But he’s not really defined as a character, no background story. 
         Therein lies the problem with the story itself.  Frodo and his fellowship, or guardians, go on a journey to destroy this ring and keep running into new characters, who just kind of show up, bad and good, and aren’t distinguishable from one another.  It just seems like they were probably in the book, so Jackson just threw them in the film, much like Harry Potter, 
to please the fans.
         It’s because of this that I couldn’t identify with any of the characters, especially the evil ones.  Saruman, played by Christopher Lee looking even more raggedly old than Ian McKellen as Gandalf, is apparently the leader of the bad guys, but his presence is barely felt.  New goblins and demons keep on popping up out of nowhere to take on Frodo and his gang; one distinctly looks like the ogre from Harry Potter.  There’s no clear presence or understanding of what exactly it is they're fighting.
         George Lucas and Star Wars in general has been criticized for poor direction, stiff acting, and bad dialogue.  But Lucas understands story, structure, and length of his fantasy films.  He doesn’t make three-hour epics with no ending.  Sure, Darth Vader gets away at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope, but the good guys had a clear objective, blow up the Death Star, and they completed it.  Lucas didn’t leave us with a cliffhanger until The Empire Strikes Back when we already knew and were familiar with the characters.  And even then it was a complete film; Luke faced Vader and the Empire won overall.
         Fellowship of the Ring is not a complete film.  Frodo’s objective is not completed; there is no clear ending to the film; we’re just left with a cliffhanger for no good reason.  Jackson clearly does not understand the structure an epic like this should take.
       Jackson also shows his inexperience as a director too.  The visual style he's used in the past doesn’t work for a film like this and the special effects, in most parts, are campy like the recent Mummy series.  He uses too many close ups, and most of the time while in close up, the backgrounds look extremely fake.  The main star, Elijah Wood, is very stolid in this role; he shows little or no emotion at all.  Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Viggo Mortensen, and Sean Bean act the same as well.  So to use close ups so often is not too intelligent. 
        The only two actors that really stand out are Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins and Ian McKellen as Gandalf.  The only problem with Gandalf is when he saves himself with a special effect that looks like something out of Clash of the Titans, and the fact that he dies too easily and uneventfully, much like Captain Kirk in Star Trek: Generations. 
        Jackson’s style worked in a small film like Heavenly Creatures because he took a rather bland murder story and made it visual.  But Rings reminds me more of a big budget version of what he did in Dead Alive (aka Braindead).   That was a campy gross out B horror film that was so bad, because of the acting and script, that it was actually funny, much like the Evil Dead series.  With Rings, he’s obviously trying to do a serious story, and he fails.
        To top it off, one of the aspects that drives films like Star Wars and even Indiana Jones and makes them epic in stature are their exciting memorable classical scores by John Williams.  The Rings score doesn’t drive the action scenes, nor is it memorable or exciting.
        Furthermore, the action scenes are lame as well.  Since there’s no distinct bad guy, it’s just a bunch of people fighting and killing each other, no climax, and no real excitement.  When one fight scene was over they just moved onto the next, up until of course the film just ended.
        The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is epic in its failure as a film.  I feel bad for New Line Cinema and all the money it’s poured into this trilogy, and betting all this on the back of a hack director like Peter Jackson.  Hopefully there are enough fans of the book to buy tickets to make up for the $200+ million it costs to make and market Rings.  I predict that after the first couple weekends, word of mouth is going to kill this film.  It’s going to be this year's second big budget bomb, like Pearl Harbor.  But you never know, shoddy films with big budgets like Titanic clean up all the time at the box office. 

Recommended Alternatives:  Star Wars Trilogy, Indiana Jones Trilogy, Heavenly Creatures (d: Jackson), Apt Pupil (s: McKellen), Patriot Games (s: Bean)

-Reviewed in Theater- 
 
 

Here are some comments people have left at my guestbook:
(Grammatical errors were in original posts at guestbook)

"I think your review of The Lord of the Rings:Fellowship of the rings stinks of what I like to call lucusitus[sic]." --Cofused[sic] Surfer

"i am sorry to say, but i more than disagree with who ever wrote that Sh*t review of lord of the rings.  i can't even believe that you would say STar Wars- phantom menace was better than this movie. i mean wtf are you on?. . . .you honestly think that jar jar shite face stupidass binks is even worth the crap i shit. . . .. but, you are intiled to your own oppinion and i am intiled[sic] to my own, and i think your review was shit!worst director- george lucas, worst actor- JAR JAR BINKS hands down- he's worse than carrot top."--Kassandra

"Id just like to say that after reading that shit-arse review . . . that he has definately been smoking too much halfling pipe-weed. . . .you are something that should go back to where you came from, your fantasy land of starwars, where hopefully the droids will decapitate you and rid the world of your narrow-mindedness forever. . . .Looks like the fumes from your city life got to your head."--relledriver [blurb taken from 2 different posts by same person]
 

Check out these other Fidelio Film Reviews:
Heavenly Creatures
The Talented Mr. Ripley