Peter Jackson, Michael Lynne, Mark Ordesky, Barrie M. Osborne, Rick Porras, Tim Sanders, Jamie Selkirk, Robert Shaye, Ellen Somers, Fran Walsh, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein
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Cast:
Alan Howard (as The Ring (voice)), Elijah Wood (as Frodo Baggins), Noel Appleby (as Everard Proudfoot), Sean Astin (as Samwise 'Sam' Gamgee), Sala...
"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" has a bravura opening ten minutes. A scrupulous narrator tells us about the origins of the Great Rings of Power, with one master ring that means the key to the power of all the universe. The camera sweeps the countryland through mountains and plains where epic battles take place. Soldiers wear gnarly steely armor but are defenselessly annihilated by the cosmic power of the ring, possessed by the dark side. The whole introduction comes to life like a graphic novel.
Although often visually transporting, Rings doesn’t however fully show faith in its pastoral shots. Then at a one hundred and sixty minute running time, there is comprehension of why the filmmakers are in a hurry. The Rings trilogy, by British author J.R.R. Tolkien is as thick and cumbersome an act of delineating the genealogy of the Old Testament. There is too much ground to cover for the skeletal confinements of a movie to handle.
Elijah Wood has fine, unadorned charm as the hapless Frodo, handed the responsibility of protecting the ring from the wise Gandalf the Grey (the splendid Ian McKellen). Ghouls of the deep fiery abysses of the earth will hunt and slaughter at all costs to get to the ring in effort to return it to their master Dark Lord Sauron. This is Star Wars for the middle ages.
What Peter Jackson does as a director is compose epic flights and treks with aerial shots while most doldrums in the director’s chair shoot tilting up shots from the ground and nothing else. Jackson gives us a multi-range of shots but in all the flurry of cinematic tricks, he never lets us have a geographical definition of where we are and how much further there is to go. The effect over the long course of the film, for non-fans of the wizards and sorcery trilogy is both awesome and stifling, it wants to take your breath away but then it really does.
Fans of Tolkien will be more than pleased with this richly detailed and imagined screen adaptation. For those unaware of the novels will find a peculiar absence of rhythm to this engagement, while fans will make this movie their sacred treasure. Nevertheless, beware of the action sensation overload, behold of its wearisome effects. Rings will obliterate your senses, whether you find that a good thing or not.
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