Seriously lacks dramatic punch.

Rating: 4/10 (12 January 2002)

Some elements of this film (production design, willingness to engage the subject seriously) are great, even awe-inspiring, but there are serious flaws with it too.
Either the screenplay for this film was seriously lacking, or the director somehow failed to develop its potential for dramatic impact. Beautiful in appearance and in its effective portrayal of big themes and evil forces, this film loses all punch by failing to provide enough surprises and dramatic development from scene to scene.
You will find too many scenes where, for example, the key characters will say "oo-er . . . I just have a hunch that we are being followed" and, lo-and-behold, the expected fight scene against orcs occurs perhaps seven minutes later. In that seven minutes, nothing much else will have happened, and certainly no genuine humour. The end result can be best described as one of two things: 1) This movie is, in pace and feel, almost identical to Conan The Barbarian (which, unfortunately, is the case); 2) This movie is rather like watching tha mid-season, mid-table American football game.
*** mild spoilers *** The best example of the dodgy marrative is near the end of the film where, inexplicably, the hunky supporting heroes all spontaneously agree to run off and help two little hobbits rather than to paddle their boats in the other direction and support the fulcrum character of the film - and the scene is unsatisfactory, destroying any epic feel by making two simple hobbits seem more important than going the other way to help save the world (I do understand that they may prove to be "vital" to saving the world in the sequels, but that doesn't make events any better dramatically). Another suspect subplot is where lots of time and effort is made to land Gandalf in a tricky situation atop a tower, only to have him magically employ a moth (and then a giant eagle) to help him, whereby he is returned to safety and back into the central plotline. Like a bad publicity news release, every event seems to have that big "So what? What was all that about?" factor.
Here's a better example of what I'm saying. Just imagine how dull the final lightsabre fight in The Empire Strikes Back would have been if the movie had continually prepped us for the "I am you father" bit by hinting at the "father" fact throughout the movie. Add to that Yoda explaining previously that Luke could potentially equal Vader in the fight, and that Luke could perhaps use a psychic power to let his friends locate him if need be, etc. All those hints and general talk anticipating the fight would have destroyed the climax, and that's exactly what LOTR does. In an attempt to relate to us the central theme of fate, this LOTR movie hints endlessly about what might happen next and about what all the impending threats are! Talk about a passion killer.
Another core problem with this movie is that, in condensing the book, it seems to simplify the "family values" element to something moribund and unelievable. Amid the majesty of the LOTR book the family values felt exciting, providing a fantastic counterpoint to the hugeness of the themes. However, when reduced to a cinema screen the same family values feel simplistic and unsatisfactory. When Elrond gathers together the key characters to create the "Fellowship" central to the movie, all you have on camera is a motley bunch of heroes with the IQs (and personalities) of a football team, being cobbled together in a really arbitrary fashion. They spend the next hour and a half having no social interaction WHATSOEVER apart from firing at everything that moves. There is literally more character exposition in schlock movie greats like Commando. Yet we are constantly told that this "Fellowship" represents our only hope against evil. If that's the case, I'll trade in my ration of hope for a KFC with avalanche and extra fries. Additional damaging elements include the striking lack of extras - in no scene do there ever seem to be more than 15 real humans - and the poor action in which most fights are viewed from the shoulders up with requisite jerky camera.
Overall this movie has left me feeling like I've been touched by a magical world, and a lot of the movie was interesting. But in truth the movie is no more fun than dodgy fantasy flicks like Krull . . . and that's enough criticism to drive ANY movie mogul scurrying back into his hobbit hole! A return to "human" film making, anyone? 4/10