My personal favourite of the trilogy

Rating: 9/10 (20 April 2020)

Spoilers ahead (given this movie made a boatload of money, chances are you've seen it, and therefore spoilers shouldn't be a problem).
Fellowship of the Ring is my favourite of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Two Towers is good, and Return of the King is amazing up until the drawn-out climax (or climaxes) where it just refuses to end. Fellowship of the Ring also happens to be the most "adventure-ish" of the three in my opinion, with both Two Towers and Return of the King feeling a bit more like war films actually.
Fellowship of the Ring is an adventure film through and through. It involves nine different individuals of different races all joining together to deliver Sauron's ring into the fires of Mt. Doom in order to stop him from becoming powerful enough to take over Middle Earth. You know the drill.
My favourite aspect of this movie is the characters and the ways they interact. We get so much great character development in this movie because Peter Jackson doesn't get carried away with too many prolonged action sequences (we do see more in the other two films, and they are admittedly awesome in their own way). There's just something exciting about the start of an adventure that's captured so perfectly well in this film.
I also love the sense of danger- there's legitimate tension in this movie. Gandalf pretty much dies, and unless you've seen Two Towers, you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd stay dead. And of course we lose Boromir at the end of the film, seeing as he's played by Sean Bean, so there's a real sense of loss, sacrifice, and intensity in this film that may be slightly lacking from the others. I think seeing the Fellowship get separated at the film's end is immensely emotional; a group of characters we've come to know and care about are forced to disband- they lose two members too, and the fellowship is broken. I'm not a totally miserable person, by the way. I just like the fact things don't turn out as perfectly as we'd expect them to. It raises the stakes for the next two movies, and succeeds in getting the audience even more involved in the character's quest. It shows them to be vulnerable people, and therefore they become relatable. Too often in fantasy films there's a lack of engagement to the characters, as they frequently are blessed with great, fantastical powers that let them breeze through any hardship that comes their way. This is most certainly not the case in Fellowship of the Ring.
So, aside from a gripping storyline and great characters, what else does this movie have going for it? A fair bit, I gotta say.
The movie's beautiful, that's for sure. Peter Jackson, knwon before Lord of the Rings for making a bunch of trashy yet memorable B-movies (including the gore-tastic Braindead- or "Dead Alive" if you're in the US), directs the hell out of the movie, and makes such good use of the New Zealand country-side to create a very believable fantasy realm. The acting's great too- Elijah Wood succeeds in not being totally annoying, Sean Bean is great, Viggo Mortensen knows he has to wait a couple of movies before his performance can really shine (but he seems okay with that). Big props has to go to Ian McKellen as Gandalf though- he even managed to get an Academy Award nomination for playing one of the most awesome wizards in cinema history (only acting nomination from the whole trilogy).
I can't comment on how faithful it is to the book unfortunately, as I have not read it. I can say though that the music's awesome- this was the film where we were introduced to the majority of Howard Shore's memorable pieces of music he made for this trilogy, and he did a phenomenal job here. Absolutely great music all throughout this movie.
So, here I am, telling you how great the first Lord of the Rings movie was, which is something you already likely know. But hey, it's my favourite adventure film, so I kinda had to give some thoughts about it. Haven't watched the extended editions of any of the Lord of the Rings films yet, by the way. Don't know if I ever will either. I know they tend to be regarded as the superior versions of these films, but I kinda think the theatrical versions are already long enough. Extended version of Return of the King is over four hours, and I'm not sure that's something I could watch in a single sitting, and I'd feel kinda bad for watching it in two sittings; I'd feel like I was doing the movie a disservice or something.
Maybe one day, if I inherit 50 million dollars out of nowhere and never need to work again in my life I'll pick up the extended versions and give them a watch. That may not happen any time soon though.
Ah well.
I'm a patient guy.