Excellent adventure

Rating: 10/10 (28 July 2008)

Personally, I'm not a big fan of fantasy. I find it rather pretentious and for most entries into the genre, silly and/or melodramatic. But Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" is an exception. It's a grand adventure filled with limitless energy and likable characters. The series is at the top of the IMDb "Top 250" list, and rightly so. The first installment is extraordinary.
I'm going to skip over the plot because by now everyone knows it. The acting is pitch-perfect across the board. Elijah Wood has clearly grown out of his kid roles, and is terrific as Frodo. His co-star Ian McKellen may have gotten the Oscar nod for his role, but Wood equals him. Likewise, McKellen finds the right note for Gandalf. Everyone else is perfectly suited for their roles as well. Special note goes to Sean Bean, who made a career out of playing creeps and villains, is successful as Boromir, and shows that he has more range than people may give him credit for.
The stakes were incredibly high for this film series, and obviously it paid off. Peter Jackson deserves much of the credit. His work here is the fantasy answer to George Lucas' "Star Wars" saga. Unlike much of today's CGI, it wasn't done cheaply, and everything looks authentic, and the result is breathtaking. It's hard to tell what's real and what's not. But Jackson's skill goes beyond the effects. Much of the acclaim of Tolkien's series is the fact that he created a whole new world. Jackson does the same thing; it doesn't feel like a bunch of effects were added to sets or everything was in front of a blue screen. Jackson has created a whole new world, just like Tolkien did.
Of course, this would not be worth anything if Jackson and his co-writers hadn't written a screen adaptation that was worthy of the book (which I have not read). Everything moves smoothly and nothing feels left out or short-changed.
Many films have been destroyed by too much hype. But "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" is so grand that nothing could diminish its spectacle. And what a film to deserve it!