Hyperbole

Rating: Null/10 (24 December 2001)

Who are these strange people? What do they want? What is this Ring?
These are the questions I kept asking myself as the action in "The Fellowship of the Ring" kept hurtling forward at light speed. I read the books (in the late '70s) as a freshman in high school. And still, I had no idea what was motivating all these unusual people onscreen, except that we kept being told how evil the ring is.
I couldn't understand half of what the characters were saying, especially Ian McKellan. I didn't know half of the characters names, or why they chose to join this fellowship. There were scenes filmed in a style more suited to video games than Tolkien. All those swoopy camera moves made me ill.
Ian Mckellan could have been a fine Gandalf, if he didn't mumble half of his lines. Elijah Wood looked too girly. Boromir and Aragorn looked too much alike. ALL of the relationships were missing. The plot was the equivalent of Judy and Mickey saying, "Hey, I have an idea! Let's put on a quest!"
One of the most overrated movies of the year. It will not stand the test of time. The only way to account for the hyperbolic reviews on this page is to imagine that the Tolkien fans are out in force. Forget the movie--READ THE BOOKS.