Why Waste Time on a Story When You Can Have Fights?

Rating: 7/10 (24 December 2001)

I just saw this two days ago. I have never read the books and so I was an empty slate ready to fall into the fantasy world of The Ring. I enjoyed the film and was fairly easily entertained for the three hours. They did an outstanding job of creating the terrain, peoples, and buildings of an unearthly place. I really felt like I was watching the goings-on of another world. In my opinion, the acting, casting, and music were all good.
Yet, the movie left me with somewhat of any empty and unconvinced feeling. The character development was really lacking. Although I watched them for 3 hours, I left feeling like I didn't get to know the characters. I REALLY wanted to like Frodo and root for him, but I don't think they did a great job of endearing him to the audience. Without that, you start caring less about his plight. I also felt that they needed to develop the friendships in the film. When you see a portrayal of a great friendship, it reminds you of your own good friends and what they've meant and done for you. This draws you more into the story. The greatest failure here is with Frodo and Sam. To an uninitiated viewer like me, Sam comes across as an annoying tag-along, when I think he's supposed to be a staunch friend.
I agree with the previous reviewer who wrote that deep-down this was an epic action film, not an epic fantasy film. After awhile I began to feel that I was watching a group of wooden characters, assembled together as the glue used to transition from action sequence to action sequence. While the action sequences were fabulous, they lacked real meaning due to the weak characters. I even detected in some of the monster sequences a bit of that campy, slasher movie feel. A little too Freddy Krueger or Michael Jackson Thriller-ish.
The movie spends too much time trying to entertain with monsters and fights and not enough with characters. This is the movie's real failure to achieve greatness. The director's motto seemed to be "Why waste time on a good story when you can have action and fights?" They took an uncommon story and made an all-too-common film out of it.