Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring

Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring (2001) – Movie Review

Director: Peter Jackson
Screenwriters: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson
Based on the Book by: J.R.R. Tolkien
Producers: Peter Jackson, Barrie M. Osborne, Tim Sanders, Fran Walsh, Michael Lynne (E.P. New Line), Mark Ordesky (E.P. New Line), Bob Weinstein (E.P.), Harvey Weinstein (E.P.) Rick Porras (Wingnut), Jamie Selkirk (Wingnut), Robert Shaye, Ellen Sommers (A.P.).
Studio: New Line Cinema
Production Company: Wingnut Films,
Top Billed Cast: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Sean Bean, Viggo Mortensen, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Cristopher Lee, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd.

OK, here we go and where better to start this film review blog that at number one on my all time list.


LOGLINE: A small person sets out on a journey across dangerous lands to destroy a ring of great evil. As he journeys he gathers a party of followers including a great wizard, a ranger, and elf, a dwarf, a knight and... his gardener. Together they face many dangerous and perilous obstacles, none less than the ring in their possession.


VIEWING CIRCUMSTANCES: The first time I saw this was also my first experience with a premium cinema, Hoyts La Premier in Perth, where I was on Holiday. La Premier has a waiting lounge and unlimited pop corn and soda and tea and coffee. Unfortunately I had too much coffee and coke and could last the epic three hours without a runpee. A good excuse to go back and watch it in the cinema again... and again, even though I made it through the second time by not drinking anything for three hours before!


FIRST IMPRESSIONS: When I first heard that this film was coming out from my brother who saw a teaser trailer, I hadn't read the books. I was into a MUD (Multi User Dimension), an online fantasy text based game (OK, so much for my reputation as a cool movie reviewer, the game is up, I'm a nerd, good now I can relax) so had a slight interest in the fantasy  genre but I was from from a die hard.


So I went and read the book before the film was released. And I loved it! (I didn't read the second book, TTT, until after the film came out to see if this was better. It wasn't so then I read the third, ROTK before the film release). But I couldn't see how any film could do it justice. Especially the director of Brain Dead! Little did I know, Peter Jackson was in the process of taking the medium of film to a new level.


STORY: Tolkien's Epic is a true masterpiece. PJ, Fran and Philippa's adaptation does it justice. They found the true heart (spine) of the story, hit all the essential beats of any good film and somehow managed to stay to the characters and filled it will Tolkien's famous detail. No mean feat.


PRODUCTION: Old school miniatures and forced focus in camera trickery (making the hobbits look small by putting the further from the camera than the" big folk"), mixed with leading edge CGI (computer graphics)  and a  WETA's (the workshop that built all the sets, makeup, costumes, props etc) brilliant attention to detail (they engraved the insides of costume's in elvish that no camera would ever see) made for a breakthrough in quality and scope of production not seen since Star Wars over 20 years prior.


PERFORMANCE: Wonderful performances all round from an experienced, classy cast devoid of 'movie stars', which in my humble opinion was part of what made this such a great film - no distracting faces (i.e. I wasn't watching Brad Pitt, I was watching Aragorn). Speaking of which, Viggo's perfromance was one of the best, any guy who sleeps outside with his sword to get into character is going to put in a great performance though, isn't he?


OVERALL: As I said, this is my favourite film (though I usually count the trilogy as a single).


MEETSLINE: some movies are above meetslines. This is one such movie.


FAVOURITE QUOTE:
"You shall not pass!"


"I will take it. I will take the ring to Mordor... though I do not know the way"


"I don't think he knows about second breakfast Pip." / "What about Elevensies..."


RECOMMENDED ACCOMPANIMENT: Tea with toast and jam or soup with toast and cheese.


LINKS: 


Check out my deconstruction of LOTR FOTR here: http://filmdeconstructions.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-fellowship-of-ring.html


Check out my review of LOTR TTT here:
http://reviewflix.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-two-towers.html


Check out my deconstruction of LOTR ROTK here:
http://reviewflix.blogspot.com/2011/09/lord-of-rings-return-of-king.html


RATING:

5 out of 5 reels of film.

Movie Review by A.B. McBlogsmith the Backwards Cap Film Reviewer

(C) Review Flix 2011