Embrace the power of the Ring...

Rating: 10/10 (11 December 2005)

I've always loved fantasy and science-fiction novels, and I'm very grateful for that, since the movie adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring is one of the reasons I fell in love with movies (the other reasons are Spider-Man, Casablanca, The Godfather and Pulp Fiction), it's so incredibly excellent. Some people refer to the Lord of the Rings trilogy as my generation's Star Wars (I was 12 when TFOTR was released), but I actually think it's better than Star Wars, and basically for one reason: the way director Peter Jackson has brought Tolkien's beloved classic to the screen.
Jackson has perfectly understood CGI is nothing but a tool that enables the filmmaker to tell stories more easily: while in Star Wars we see dozens of different worlds, which are visually stunning but appear for only a couple of minutes (or seconds), in LOTR everything we see is there to make sure the story goes on. Oh, another important thing too: in this movie, plot and character come first, the visuals are added later. The director takes his time to introduce the various inhabitants of Middle Earth and the chain of events that will change their lives forever. The movie is almost three hours long, so what? It's a story we really care about, and the characters make us feel for them every single moment: we cheer with Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) when he learns he won't have to face his difficult task alone; we laugh with them when Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) make fools of themselves; we cry and worry with them when things start getting bad...
That's probably also the reason for which this movie is superior to its sequels (N.B. I'm talking about the so-called "theatrical versions"): in parts 2 and 3, important moments of character development are ditched in favor of long, breathtaking battles, and the audience knows something's missing. That's not the case of The Fellowship of the Ring: the extended version is better, that's true, but the first movie is the one with the least deleted minutes, and therefore the one that feels less incomplete than the others.
As I said before, Jackson values characters more than effects, and he uses the latter only to tell the story more successfully, so that the world where those people live will look more realistic on screen; now, since the characters are more important, the cast is a crucial element, and luckily the actors chosen for this movie are pure perfection: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dom Monaghan and Billy Boyd are career-best as the four hobbits, the most vulnerable members of the Fellowship, therefore the ones we care about the most; Viggo Mortensen is 100% convincing as the conflicted, layered Aragorn; Ian McKellen gives Gandalf the Grey the warmth and wisdom he deserves, and finally, Christopher Lee is just THE only actor who could flawlessly play the Darth Vader-like good-turned-bad Saruman, proving once again he's the NÂ°1 choice when it comes to casting someone as the really bad guy. Like Dracula, he has gloriously resurrected to spread horror another time.
An amazing beginning for an even more amazing trilogy, perhaps the best I've ever had the pleasure to see. Should have won Best Picture of 2001 (as well as Director and Adapted Screenplay).
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them... well, you know the rest!