A superb feat of filmmaking!

Rating: Null/10 (8 December 2003)

I just watched the Fellowship of the Ring at our local widescreen Cinerama Theatre (fantastic sound system and comfortable, well-situated seats where only the tallest person could have his/her annoying head blocking one's view!). I had been holding out on watching The Trilogy movies because I had never finished reading the books. I read The Hobbit twice (and made it through The Fellowship of the Ring 1/3 of the way the first attempt and about 1/2 way the second time), and have always believed that a great work of literature should be read first before seeing a movie version thereof (I've missed seeing a good number of excellent films because of this stubborn belief--not wanting Hollywood to implant the images in my mind..). It was almost 30 years ago that I worked on that reading project and I figured, what the hell, go see the movies and read the books if/when I choose to someday! I wasn't disappointed. The SETS(!), costumes, special effects and sound were absolutely stunning. The acting was quite good, although I had a bit of a hard time with Frodo's hobbit sidekicks (sincere, funny, "cute", etc. but their acting didn't quite convince me that they weren't young, contemporary actors--they seemed to-- disappointingly--draw me out momentarily of the epic, fantasy world created in the book and in this movie). The battle scenes were great, although I thought that the orcs (and that mace-wielding giant creature that chaperoned the orcs--was he in the book?!?) were perhaps a little bit extreme "Hollywood Monster" (think 'Spawn' or other such ilk--but don't get me wrong--I like vile drooling and bad teeth, etc.). Other than that...totally enjoyable and I can't wait to see Two Towers (playing locally this week I believe) and Return of the King later this month). I think that The Lord of the Ring trilogy will go down as a classic and as one of the all-time great cinematic achievements--of any genre--and can only pave the way for future filmmakers to meet the challenge of creating something better, if that is possible.