Cinematic history in the making

Rating: 10/10 (19 August 2015)

The very idea that the same guy who directed Braindead would one day become Cecil B. DeMille's and David Lean's heir must have been the source of much of joy and laughter. But the first part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy proves that you need pure, fresh, unadulterated talent if you are to tackle a challenge such as bringing a dense, 1200+ pages, beloved, impossible to adapt literary masterpiece to life. Peter Jackson and his renegade team of mostly unknowns (up to that point) pulled off the biggest gamble in film history that could have easily sent New Line to its grave a few years earlier than it did. It sets the trilogy to a great start, staying true to the original and communicating all the grandeur and darkness of Tolkien's Middle Earth. The movie was robbed at the Oscars.