Do Not Let Die-Hard Fans Mislead you!

Rating: 7/10 (22 December 2001)

Although well made, LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING is by no means the greatest film of time. After seeing it twice, I find it to be an enjoyable, though uneven, movie-going experience.
First, the effects. They are well done, but the quality varies from scene to scene. The opening battle sequence suffers from a reliance on swooping cameras and blurry, dull visuals. The entire film seems awash in darkness, visually speaking. Peter Jackson uses Dark, moody lighting to enhance the CGI, and quite frankly, he over does it.
The battle sequences are adequetly coreographed but poorly filmed. There is nothing especially ground-breaking or impressive in the swordfights here. After seeing Braveheart in 1995 and Gladiator just last year, The sworplay in FELLOWSHIP seems standard by this point.
The Characters, save Gandalf, are uninvolving. Frodo comes of as one- note and spineless. As a protagnist he generates very little sympathy and left me feeling indifferent towards him.
The corrupting power of the ring is very much over-stated. Every few minutes we are subjected to an overdone scene where a character is tempted by it. A few scenes of this nature would do just fine in establishing the rings allure, but the overkill ruins the effect.
This is by no means the Greatest film of all time or even the best Fantasy/Adventure film ever made (That title still belongs to THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, sorry LOTR fans). expect that #1 ranking to go down about twnety or thirty places over the coming weeks, as more people see the film. It is passionate and well-made, but it lacks energy and a sense of wonder. In the end, it's a rather dull labor of love.
This will do well at the box office, but not as well as expected. Tolkien fanatics are expecting TITANIC size grosses, but that is wishful thinking in my opinion. The opening weekend will be surprisingly huge, of that there is no doubt. But I think word of mouth will be quite different among average movie goers than it will be among RINGS fans. This thing is so tailer made for fans I think that the ordinary layman will be somewhat underwhelmed. I predict a gross of about $250 million at the most.