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Fictional History, Real Classic Favorite Movie Quote: "You shall not pass!" Obviously it's nearly impossible to judge the three Lord of the Rings films on there own merits. Being a book so large it was broken into three pieces subsequently made into three films that were shot simultaneously, Lord of the Rings makes the best case for the "it's really one part of a larger movie" crap so prevalent when any film has the slightest possibility of a sequel. That being said, Fellowship is my favorite of the three parts. Fellowship of the Ring begins with a rousing expository prelude telling of the history of the One Ring and how it has been used by Sauron to enslave all the people of Middle Earth, and how it found itself in the hands of Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm), who soon passes it on to his nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood). Suspecting the Ring is more than just a trinket, Gandalf (Ian MacKellen) seeks the wisdom of head wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee) and punts little Frodo onto the road with Sam (Sean Aston), Merry (Dominic Monaghan), and Pippin (Billy Boyd) where they soon hook up with man of the wild Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) as they flee from those seeking the Ring. The band eventually meets up in Rivendell, where they enlist the services of Gimli (John-Rhys-Davies), Boromir (Sean Bean) and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and set out to destroy the Ring once and for all. There's no question that all the Rings flicks are long with enough material to make about two movies each, but I never found myself wishing that it be over sooner. Much like Brian Singer taking X-men seriously, it was nice, if you're into the whole swords and sorcery thing, to see Peter Jackson likewise take Rings seriously, as the subject is usually treated as if its fan base were made up entirely of retarded, masturbating fourteen-year-olds with bad senses of humor. When reading the books, Fellowship was my least favorite of the three. It front loads an elephant's weight of world-building exposition and character development and is very casual about starting the narrative; I can honestly say that Fellowship of the Rings is one of the only books that I read before seeing its movie where I thought the movie was clearly better. This includes the exclusion of Tom Bombadil, a character that I never favored. Also, imagination is one thing, but Gandalf's showdown with the balrog is one of my favorite movie moments of all time and easily my favorite moment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. For me, this was the fantasy movie that I'd been waiting my whole life to see. That it met my expectations was more than I could have hoped for and I think it got jobbed at the Oscars. email this review to a friend
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May 5, 2008 3:50 PM