A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

The Evaluation System Reviews by Title Reviews by Date

Reviews from Video Reviews of the Classics Personal Background

Title: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Date Viewed: 12/21/01

Details:

Elijah Wood

Ian McKellen

Viggo Mortensen

Sean Astin

Liv Tyler

Cate Blanchett

John Rhys-Davies

Sean Bean

Ian Holm

Christopher Lee

Director: Peter Jackson

Score: +

The Review: "Seems like an awfully small ring to cause all this trouble." The beginning of an epic trilogy, this movie continues a prolonged confrontation between good and evil, and initiates a multi-pronged adventure and attempt to destroy the ring of power. The fellowship is formed of numerous humanoid species to guard the ring-bearer and accomplish this quest. Welcome to Middle Earth! -- home to hobbits, elves, dwarves, and men, along with a host of unmentionable creepy beings.

There are two ways to approach this movie: simply as a film of fantasy, ignoring any prior knowledge; or as an embodiment of a set of powerful and evocative novels, indeed a entire set of worlds and cultures, that made a big impression on me when first read. First things first. The scope of "The Ring" is enormous, larger in fact than "The [Other] Ring" (the one by Wagner, in four parts, lacking lyrics and vocals by Enya). The history of the ring's creation and re-discovery -- something essential to understanding what the entire plot layout is about -- is laid out as prolog, briefly but effectively, and then the main theme kicks in.

The casting and acting are excellent. Bearing the ring clearly places an emotional burden on whomever it chooses, and this is all too apparent; I was concerned that Elijah Wood would be too young or inexperienced to convey this, but I was sorely mistaken. Gandalf's mercurial nature, from humor to rage, is well suited to Ian McKellan, wispy grey beard and all. The somewhat controversial casting of Liv Tyler as the elf Arwen worked quite well; I see no dissonance (but then, when it comes to Tyler, I would find it difficult ever to find dissonance...). However, the other hobbit companions (Merry and Pippin), came across as much more frivolous and light-weight than my textual memories serve.

And the scenery is spectacular! For most of us cloistered in the Northern hemisphere, New Zealand casts a long shadow of interest, contrast and mystery, thus serving as an excellent country in which to stage this epic. The various "indoor" (underground) sequences also work very well, with the trek through the caverns and bridges of Moria giving an intense feeling of depth and precariousness.

The evil is palpable; good, however, is harder to see. The Nazghul are particularly spooky. But the good in individual natures only comes out slowly as the Ring tests each of the fellowship.

Objectivity aside, how do the imagery, characters and scenarios compare with those in my mind? It is the strength of Tolkein's original storytelling and the images he invokes, that helped me long avoid viewing any earlier attempts of putting pieces of "The Lord of the Rings" on-screen; selfishly, I did not want my inner vision contradicted. Lo these many years later, either my impatience, or my trust in the current crop of software and hardware tools, broke down my resistance, and I became eager to see this film. Its conception and implementation was worth the wait, and on the whole, I was not disappointed. While the depth and complexity of the cultures, linguistics and philosophy never quite reaches the surface, it's not obviously missing (nor perhaps needed, in this style of adventure film). A reader of the text can always skip the appendices (and many probably did); the viewer needn't know they exist to appreciate the adventure.

The architecture and environment of the towers of Isengard and Barad-Dhur is well done. The concept of a wizarding fortress as a near-solitary tall tower is an odd one -- both structurally and militarily -- but one that seems compelling enough. It was also used in the Darkover novels of Marion Zimmer Bradley, so somewhere in the humanoid breast there arises a tower archetype of protection and isolation. Then, Rivendell was rather different from my mind's view, as was the Forest of Lothlorien, but neither jarringly so. Perhaps this gets back to my earlier point about the clear portrayal of evil: it is apparently easier to convey evil (and its surroundings) convincingly, than it is to appeal to the different face(t)s of how people conceive good.

The near-monochrome imagery that kicks in when the ring is worn, from the viewpoint of the wearer, is fantastic; if this description was not in the original (and here my memory fails me), it surely belongs there.

Ultimately, I found it difficult to view this movie while simultaneously trying to forget having read the novels numerous times. Practice helps keep track of the details, and this time through, the character's names roll off the tongue and the place names resound in memory -- when in fact, the first time, I had difficulty keeping track of Sauron versus Saruman. The casting of Boromir (Bean) and Aragorn (Mortenson) continue this ambiguity: to my eyes they were difficult to identify one from the other, nearly interchangeable grubby warrior prince types. Other quibbles? The character of Galadriel, a compelling memory from my reading, however well-cast into Blanchett, has been reduced to a minor role.

Is this "the" best movie of the year? No. Is it in contention? Perhaps, almost certainly. Is it a good movie? Yes. I look forward to the remaining two parts, which were filmed nearly simultaneously with this first portion; we only have to wait another one or two years. (Arrgh!!)

Back to the chronological list of reviews