Beautiful, if breathless, adaptation

Rating: 9/10 (20 December 2004)

If you want to know how to do the impossible, watch Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring. When I was growing up, I thought no one could translate such a sweeping book onto the screen successfully, and yet the man who brought us Bad Taste has done it.
Just so you know in advance, the film takes plenty of liberties with the story; no Old Forest, Bombadil, Barrow Wights or Glorfindel. No Wargs in the wilderness - and you have to wait until the third film to see Narsil re-forged. In fact if the film has a serious fault it is that so much of the story is cut, it could leave the audience breathlessly hurtled from one action sequence to another - dazed, and maybe (if you haven't read the book) even a bit confused. But what the film does so successfully is recreated the atmosphere of the story - rather impressive considering the film is shorn of much of the textual richness found in the book. As someone who has read LoTR more times than a man of sound judgement ever should, I found myself more engrossed in the story than I had been for years.
The film gets its atmosphere from the scenery, the camera-work and some beautifully adept computer enhancement. In many cases the characterisation was also richer than the original - both Aragorn and Arwen are significantly more "human" than in the novel, as is Gandalf. Tolkien's heroes are often to perfect to be truly interesting - after all, in Mallory, it is no co-incidence that Galahad finds the Grail, but two thirds of the book is about Tristan and Lancelot. In Jackson's LoTR we see the human frailties of the characters; Aragorn's self doubt, Gandalf's fear, Elrond's unconcern (basically, "you deal with it Gandalf, I'm off on holiday with all the other elves").
This is not to say the film is without its flaws. Whoever decided that elves needed...tooo...speak ....sooo.....slowly clearly needs shooting - as does the guy who thought that a WWF-style wrestling match between Gandalf and Saruman was a good idea. Indeed there are a number of moments when a lighter directorial touch would have been better. Galadriel's demon-witch impression, for example, or Gandalf's power-vocalisation at the Bridge of Khazad-Dum. Merry and Pippin have a rather disconcerting resemblance to Ant and Dec (all three films show an astonishing heightism, more of which later).
Nevertheless, this film is an enormously impressive attempt do something I though next to impossible. At over three hours it was a long, but thoroughly enjoyable, action/fantasy film; it makes Star Wars looks like the kind of tenth-rate kiddie movie it is. And the best thing is, the special addition is even better. So not perfect, but 8/10 anyway