A Precious Beginning

Rating: 8/10 (28 July 2015)

{This review is for the 178-minute theatrical version.}
The first installment of Peter Jackson's famous fantasy trilogy, "The Fellowship Of The Ring" may not give you the entire journey, but it's a pretty terrific engine-revving.
Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) is a hobbit whose quiet, pastoral life in an unregarded corner of Middle Earth changes abruptly when he is entrusted with a Ring of Power which carries with it the power of ultimate evil. To save Middle Earth, he must destroy the Ring by casting it into the fiery pit where it was made â€“ with or without the aid of various companions.
"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future," Frodo is told, and that is the message of "Fellowship" in a nutshell. Hope is precious, no matter how frail the vessel.
Nothing frail about "Fellowship Of The Ring," which is designed to impress and succeeds magnificently. The visual design is as splendid as it is varied, not just the lush New Zealand countryside that gets such deserved attention but the snowy mountaintops and grim, bone-laden mine shafts Frodo's party must traverse.
Also impressive is the way Jackson and co-screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens recapture the scope and grandeur of the first book in J. R. R. Tolkien's "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy, while still delivering digestible cinematic entertainment. There are notable trims from the novel, and some twists, but the focus on Frodo's burden and his quest are if anything stronger than what Tolkien gives you, and makes for a ripping good yarn.
The film is not a stand-alone entertainment; you need to see it in concert with the other two LOTR films, and that's not always to its advantage. Often you get lots of exposition regarding entities like "Emyn Muil" or "Argonath" which are obviously inserted to please the Tolkien faithful at risk of alienating outsiders like me. Other things annoy me, like a slow opening section introducing Frodo and his shire and Cate Blanchett's too sly and arch performance as an elven queen, but what's good is much, much better.
Ian McKellen is splendid centering affairs as the mighty wizard Gandalf, while Wood and Sean Astin as his sidekick Sam showcase solid chemistry. Viggo Mortensen is the glue of the film, and a uniquely capable man of action as Strider. Orlando Bloom and Liv Tyler may be too pretty for me to like under normal circumstances, but here they manage to be load-bearing and brilliant.
The score, the CGI, the ugly orcs; there's not a frame of this film that doesn't reflect thought and care. "Fellowship" proves quite a trip, and the best news is there's much more to come. Frodo's pain is your gain.