The Lord Of The Rings/The Fellowship Of The Ring - Movie Review

The Fellowship Of The Ring - Movie Review

Critics Score - 10 of 10

General Audience Score - 10 of 10

If you were to take all the written literature from the 20th century and pick out the best, the cream of the crop, you’d have some of the greatest writings of all time. You’d probably include amazing pieces like To Kill A Mockingbird, The Catcher In The Rye, Ulysses, The Great Gatsby, and probably at least one piece of work from George Orwell, Faulkner and Hemingway. But among these masterpieces of writing, you’d probably be forced to include work from J.R.R. Tolkien, who penned The Hobbit and subsequently the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. Back in the late 90’s, relatively unknown director Peter Jackson decided to undertake the monumental task of directing three movies at the same time, the trilogy of The Lord Of The Rings or LOTR. New Line Cinema bankrolled the massive $281 million dollar production of what was to become a box office behemoth. Money aside, the films garnered unanimous critical acclaim and The Fellowship Of The Ring collected the first four out of the series seventeen total Oscar trophies. But I don’t need to sing the film’s praises any further, it goes without saying that LOTR The Fellowship Of The Ring is a masterpiece of filmmaking, one film to rule them all that everyone should make sure they see at least once in their life.

SYNOPSIS - Our tale begins with some exposition from Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) who gives us a quick backstory of the rings, where they came from and how the one ring came to Bilbo (Ian Holm), a hobbit, who then hands the ring down to his nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood), they live in the Shire, a remote area of middle-earth. To get into more than just a couple details of this world J.R.R. Tolkien created would be way too much for this review, but suffice it to say, this one ring is a ring to rule all others, it’s inherently evil and corrupting, can also turn it’s wearer invisible but was lost in the sands of time. There are several different kinds of humanoid creatures in this world, wizards, elves, dwarves in addition to the hobbits, half-sized people, as well as many varieties of evil creatures like goblins, orcs and trolls. But soon Gandalf (Ian McKellen) shows up to visit Bilbo and Frodo to check in on them and evaluate the ring that he suspects is the one ring that’s been missing for centuries. The adventure begins when the enemy begins to awaken and search for the one ring, if he were to find it he could use it to cover all the lands in darkness and Frodo and his friends must embark on a journey like no other that will take them to the ends of middle-earth.

Once they’ve completed the first leg of their journey, with the fellowship in shambles, we can truly appreciate how much Peter Jackson cared about this story and these characters. The adaptation is impeccable, the attention to detail in the makeup, costumes, production design is all first class. Jackson directs with such skill and precision, it’s almost unbelievable how he was able to bring this alternative world to life so vividly. The casting is also phenomenal, I’m running out of superlatives here, the entire acting ensemble is terrific and even though they had to cast half of Hollywood to fill all these roles, everyone brings their A game. Howard Shore makes one masterpiece of an original score and although some of the CG visuals are a little dated, most of the effects are so practical that they hold up extremely well. LOTR is a cinematic triumph in virtually every way a series of films can be and my words of praise here fail to do justice to what these movies mean to film lovers everywhere.

SUMMARY - If you’ve never taken a trip with Peter Jackson to middle-earth, please do so, as soon as you possibly can. The Lord Of The Rings trilogy are a one of a kind cinematic experience that anybody, cinephile or general moviegoer can be caught up in and swept away by. While the final installment was the one that gathered all the Oscar gold, it was the original Fellowship Of The Ring that set the stage for what very well could be the greatest movie trilogy ever made.