A truly astounding fantasy film.

Rating: 9/10 (11 July 2002)

As many others agree, this film is truly astounding, one of my favorite movies. It certainly takes the cake as the best fantasy film (far better than Willow and even beating out Ridley Scott's magnificent Legend), infact it may very well be one of the best sci-fi/fantasy films as well. Long have filmmakers sought to make a film adaption of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy novel. John Boorman was originally going to do it, even Stanley Kubrick considered making it before he made The Shining. But all the directors who considered it ended up dropping it, mainly because Tolkien's universe was just too big to put on film without sacrificing something. In the end, the only versions that were made was Ralph Bakshi's atrocious rotoscoped version and the bizarre Rankin Bass conclusion The Return of the King, which turned it all into a musical. Now cut to twenty years later, where truly innovative New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson (Bad Taste, Braindead, The Frighteners), took on the project. He decided that the technology was good enough to properly adapt Tolkien's world to film, and him and his special effects company Weta got to work on creating Tolkien's world. He even used his home country to stand in for Middle Earth and shot all three films simultaniously. The plot involves an extremely powerful ring forged by a dark lord called Sauron in the land of Middle Earth and then taken from his hand. The ring then passed from owner to owner, finally ending up in the hands of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit from the Shire who finds it in the cave of a horrible frog-like creature named Gollum during his travels with 13 dwarves and a wizard named Gandalf to reclaim the dwarves' treasure from a dragon named Smaug. 60 years later, Bilbo disappears on his 111th birthday, betroathing the ring to his nephew, Frodo. However, the wizard Gandalf soon realizes that this is the one ring and that Sauron has returned and is looking for it and so Frodo and his hobbit friends Sam, Merry and Pippin begin a journey to a village called Bree where Gandalf is supposed to meet them. On the way there they are terrorised by nine ghostly riders in black, in reality the Nazgul, Sauron's nine servants, but finally make it to Bree. Gandalf however is not there, but they do meet a rugged, mysterious man named Strider, who takes them out of Bree and into Rivendell, the home of the elves. In Rivendell, Strider is revealed to be Aragorn, the true heir of Gondor, the land of men, and a large council from all around Middle Earth discusses what to do with the ring. Frodo agrees to take the ring into Mordor, a hellish, barren wasteland where Sauron resides, and cast it into Mount Doom, the place it was forged and the only place where it can be destroyed. Accompanying him are Sam; Merry and Pippin; Gandalf; Aragorn; Legolas, an elf from Mirkwood; Gimli, a dwarf; and Boromier, the son of Denethor, the steward of Gondor. But this will in no way be an easy task, as both the forces of Sauron and the forces of Saruman, an evil wizard, are after the ring. And the first of the trilogy did not dissapoint one bit. Simply put, it is truly astounding. PJ did a truly fabulous job turning the books to film. The cinematography is simply breathtaking and truly transports you into another world and the special effects are simply unbelievable and very deserving of their Oscar. I usually am less than fond of CGI (I prefer the old days of Godzilla and Ray Harryhausen), but the CGI work here is simply breathtaking and very believable, often looking very much like a modern day variant on the stop motion effects of Ray Harryhausen or Willis O. Brien. And CGI is not used too much either. There is plenty of old style effects to be found as well, and it is all blended seamlessly. The makeup is also fantastic, totally tranforming actors into the creatures of Middle Earth. And the same with the costumes, which are all very reminiscent of Tolkien's largest influence, early Anglo-Saxon culture (such as Beowulf). The monsters and demons are some of the best things about the movie. Sauron (in his physical form seen at the beginning of the film) looks like a medieval Darth Vader, the Nazgul are magnificently terrifying (looking like combinations of the Headless Horseman and the Ghost of Christmas Past), and the hundreds of Orcs are really cool looking (especially the ones in the Mines of Moria), all looking truly twisted and evil. The Uruk-Hai of Saruman are also awesome, looking like a very evil looking combination of Orcs and gorillas. And the Balrog, WOW! Despite all the film's incredibly strong points, it does have a few weak points, but mainly those involve the cutting of Tolkien's dialogue and the cutting some good chapters (though Tom Bombadil had to go!).