A Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (16 August 2002)

I've never been a fan of the sword and sorcery genre . I'm surprised film companies decide to make rubbish like THE BEASTMASTER, HAWK THE SLAYER and RED SONJA but I am aware of the popularity of JRR Tolkien's massive novel LORD OF THE RINGS and of it's popularity , I remember in a survey carried out by a very well known British fantasy/SF magazine in 1987 Tolkien's book was voted the greatest fantasy novel of all time ( THE STAND by Stephen King was a long way second ) , but it's a novel that has always struck me as being read by anoraks who - like fans of STAR TREK and STAR WARS - insist on reading subtexts that are just not there . When the THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS shot to number one in the IMDb top 250 films I put the popularity down to obsessed anorakish fans who were going to vote the film a classic no matter what . Stranger still I found groups as diverse as neo Nazis to gays to enviromentalists proclaiming " This is our film " so when I finally sat down to watch TFOTR I was expecting only some average entertainment for a non sad person with no political axe to grind . After seeing the film I had to admit THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING is a masterpiece .
Much of the credit must go to the producers . I 've no idea of the politics about bringing the story to the silver screen but I can imagine the Hollywood bigwigs sitting around the commitee table saying " Give us Tom , give us Nicole , get Harrison , get Leonardo . No limeys . Limeys are slimy . No limey accents . We're Americans , this is our baby " to which the producers gave a firm and resounding " No " . Good for them because the Hollywood treatment would have ruined this film. The cast comprised of well known - but not megastar - actors and unknowns are uniformally excellent even the normally hammy Lee and Rhys Davis and the bland Tyler are good . Also great to see so many Brits playing good guys and having the American actors adopting non specific British accents .The cast do a good job
The other production values are outstanding . Pride of place goes to Andrew Lesnie's cinematography where the camera sweeps down from the sky into the Orcs underground lair and the camera also shows off the stunning New Zealand landscapes . I'd always believed Scotland had the greatest scenery on Earth but I'm willing to change my mind . The FX are good throughout though perhaps the matte backgrounds and CGI are less impressive in places but they're still a lot better than we've been used to recently . The Orc make up is wonderful and helps them become classic cinema monsters . The only bad point about the Orcs is - Like the stormtroopers in STAR WARS - they're too easy to kill .
There are some minor flaws to THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS but this is probably down to Tolkien's source novel rather than the film makers . A couple of times the heroes seem set to suffer a resounding defeat when something not obvious at first like flammable villains or a giant eagle saves the day . I guess this is cancelled out by the dangers and adversaries also appearing from nowhere and there's little female perspective in the story for the women in the audience to relate to but come on girls you've got Viggo Mortensen and Sean Bean acting all hunky and macho so you can't complain.
I see the IMDb reviewers have started a backlash against FOTR like they did with TITANIC and GLADIATOR . They're right about the gawd awful rubbish that is TITANIC but they're wrong about GLADIATOR which is a very good film and even further wrong about THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING which is a cinematic masterpiece. Ignore their criticisms . Any film that is praised by people as diverse as fans of the book , people who have never read the book , enviromentalists and cynics like myself is worth your time watching . I'm really looking forward to THE TWO TOWERS