’’The Greatest Action Adventure of all time!’’ - ’’A Movie Masterpiece’’ and ’’A Cinematic experience Par Excellence’’ are just some of the superlatives lavished upon the first of the Tolkein trilogy ’Fellowship of the Ring’.
But, it appears that I am one of few to be rowing against that tide of acclaim.
Antipodean Director Peter Jackson has taken Tolkein’s vision of Middle Earth and created a fantastical backcloth to this movie that is, I concede, quite superb. The locations and the scenery are brilliantly filmed. The variety of landscapes from the ’Shire’ where we begin the tale with the Hobbits, through to the Elfdom of Rivendell and onward to the underground caves of Moria are all creations of a mind very in tune with that of Tolkein himself. The special effects are excellent, if not ground breaking. After all, much of caves and monsters have been done before in films like ’The Mummy’ and others.
The castlist is well drawn with ’heavyweights’ such as Ian McEllen playing wizard good guy ’Gandalf’ across from that arch ’baddie’ Christopher Lee’s ’Saruman’. Hollywood youngster Elijah Wood is perfect as the hero hobbit ’Frodo’, but fans of both Cate Blanchett ( a fleeting appearance as ’Galadriel’) and Liv Tyler - almost invisible as ’Arwen’ - might be disappointed at their small parts. But there’s not a ’small part’ to be seen with hunky Viggo Mortensen as a potentially heroic star in the making as ’Aragorn’- a king-in-waiting - and Sheffield’s own Sean Bean as battling ’Boromir’.
However, I am speaking here from the viewpoint of someone who comes to the movie as a Lord of the Rings ’virgin’. Unlike the vast majority of people of my generation, I have never read the books! True, I have heard the names, Gandalf, Frodo, Bilbo, Bingo, Dildo or whatever, but nobody had ever revealed to me the dastardly secret of ?The Rings? !
Fortunately I had my own ’translator’ alongside me when I saw the film recently - my wife. She has been in love with the books since childhood. She has worn out at least three editions of the trilogy, to my knowledge. Having had the chance to see the film a week before it was released, Jill returned all aglow, telling me it was quite simply - ’’Awesome!!?’’.
Now I suppose there are trains of thought with any film of a book. If you have read the book, you have a picture in your mind of how things look. How characters are portrayed - even down to what they look like and sound like. It would be easy to be a huge fan of Lord of the Rings and be disappointed because Elijah Wood is not your ideal ’Frodo’ . In my opinion, there would be no need to be, because he is excellent in the role. In fact I have no problem at all with the casting of this film. What I do have a problem with though is??....well, what’s all the fuss about?
I sat through three hours of this film and we are yet to get half way! OK, So I do realise that this is the first of a trilogy and the remaining two parts have already been shot, ready for release at the end of 2002 and 2003. Maximum hype, Maximum exposure, Absolute Maximum money.
But what about the story? So basically there is this ring which has fantastical power and in the wrong hands will prove catastrophic. The only way to keep order in the world (whether it is a real world or this ’make believe’ world, it matters not) is to destroy it. But it has to be destroyed the right way - by casting it back into the fires from whence it came and they are to be found in a highly impregnable place which happens to be home of the forces of evil who are ’gagging’ to get their hands on the ring.
That’s it - that’s the story. But along the way we meet up with Gandalf the Wizard, Bilbo Baggins, the granddaddy of all hobbits and his nephew Frodo who takes it on himself to return the ring. Frodo is accompanied by some friends and other members of the ’Fellowship’ who have sworn to protect him and the ring until the journey is done.
And this first ’episode’ takes us a few steps along that journey - three hours worth of steps! - which do have a few twists and turns along the way, but is largely quite predictable.
For many years, the legend that surrounds the fantasy of Tolkein’s masterpiece has been waiting for this release. The critics, the fans, the media have all - virtually to a man - praised this movie. I realise that I am in a huge minority, but I wonder if there are others who come to this movie without knowing the characters, nor the various ’tribes’ etc, that feel almost left out of the ’club’. Having watched the film around 10 days ago, I have spent time re-thinking my initial thoughts, just in case somehow I may have missed the point. The film was lavish, but painstakingly S.. L.. O.. W.. The scenery was breathtaking, but the plot largely predictable - what plot there was anyway!
Lord of the Rings is now an ’industry’, much as Star Wars has now become. What began as a ground-breaking Sci-fi Flick in the 70s, has now spawned sequels, prequels, spin offs etc. Will we now be seeing other fantasy worlds recreated on the big screen - after all Tolkein is not the ONLY Fantasy writer to create his own worlds.
I would not put off anyone seeing this movie, but if you have a short attention span - be warned. It is a movie of epic proportions and one with more than epic pretentions, but will I be waiting with baited breath for the NEXT SIX HOURS of this movie to be released???
In the immortal words of those other (pop) purveyors of fantasy - George Michael and Andrew Ridgely - ’’Wake me up before I go go!’’