the Chinese Food of films

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2001)

I liked the movie. I did, really, all three hours of it. I didn't find it humorless, though my incorrigible husband made it easier to find the laughs (Gandalf re going to Moria: "Frodo must decide..." Husband, coyly: "I dunno, what do YOU want to do?"). The scenery and sets were breathtaking, Moria was in itself worth the price of admittance. Most of the actors did a fine job. The CGI was only distracting a couple of times, which given the sheer volume of special effects in the film is more worthy of lavish praise than complaint. And I doubt anyone can come away from this film without a hankering to personally explore New Zealand's incredibly gorgeous landscape.
If the characters or events didn't look or play out as I'd always imagined them, they at least made sense within the context of the books and/or the movie, so I took no offense; the vision of the film was pleasingly consistent. Tolkien himself doesn't spend a tremendous effort in development of characters, really... he's much more concerned about the sweep of history and the environment in which the action takes place. Jackson has made some changes to the story, and although I might quibble with some of them and wish he'd spent more time on character development, overall he has kept very closely to the adventurous spirit of the tale. The books are largely (with apologies to Mr. Ebert) a hop from one threatening moment to the next battle, with explanatory councils and lectures peppered liberally about. Jackson takes full, colorful advantage of those skirmish-ridden passages and (understandably, given his filmatic background) makes hay with the darkest and ookiest of Tolkien's beasties.

I admire Jackson tremendously for bringing this film to the screen in the face of the overwhelming pressure inherent in depicting one of the most well-known and rabidly loved classics of our time. It's a perilous landmine-strewn task he's taken on, and he's done an excellent job of it. My mother enjoyed the film tremendously. My eleven year old, to whom I read the books aloud this year (as my mother read them to me, when I was eleven), held my hand throughout the entire three hours, something I can't remember him having ever done before. He loved it, and can't wait to see it again. The incorrigible husband, who has never read the books, gave it two thumbs up. I can't complain at all.
And yet... and yet... I can't put my finger on it, quite. Although I enjoyed the movie very much, I'm left feeling still a bit hungry, a bit unsatisfied in some small and nagging way.
There is a bright thread that runs through most of the literary trilogy that keeps us in touch with the tenderness we see but briefly in an early scene between Gandalf and Bilbo in Jackson's film. Tolkien paints vividly in nearly every passage an admiration for the flawed but passionate races of man and dwarf, a strong sense of nostalgia for the innocence of the Shire and a yearning for the purity of the Elvish hames. It is this admiration and tenderness that inspires Gandalf and Aragorn to self-sacrifice, that binds Sam to his erstwhile employer and keeps Frodo foraging ahead on his increasingly burdened and seemingly impossible quest. In spite of the charming Hobbiton beginning and the occasional reference to the Shire and Hobbits by Gandalf et al, I think that perhaps my sense of nagging Something-Missing stems from some slack or occasional break in that thread in Jackson's vision, a small but essential neglect of that element which elevates the books from a list of battles, flights, and passages of historic exposition to the place of near reverence it holds in the hearts of generations of readers. I can only hope that Mr. Jackson makes up for this small but essential lack in the next two installments, which I am bound to see. After all, the first film is very good, though somewhat unsatisfying, and it has left me hungry for more...