Relax!! It's a trilogy!

Rating: 10/10 (6 January 2002)

(spoilers) I was pretty surprised to see the end credits of The Lord of the Rings start as soon as Frodo and Sam walked up on those rocks and got their first look at Mordor (although I was still chuckling at the thought that that may have been the point when they began to wish they had brought shoes!). For a second I was shocked that they would end the movie at the point where it really seems to begin, but then I remembered that I had already been watching it for three hours, and any more would probably be overkill. The thing that you have to keep in mind at the end of the film is that this is a TRUE trilogy, meaning that each succeeding film will take up where the last one left off. It is, in fact, a testament to the quality of the film that people will still be disappointed to see the end credits after three hours, even though that disappointment may come as a result of the feeling that we were left hanging after all that time. Personally, I was so impressed with the film that I think it has earned enough respect to be able to end any way it wants to, even if it seems to leave too many loose ends. Relax, people, they're releasing one every year until Christmas 2003, and even if you're upset that they've already filmed all three movies but we still have to wait a year between each one and you just have to know what happens next now now now, go out and read the books. Harry Potter, the other fantasy juggernaut released in the latter half of 2001, had a much neater ending, but The Lord of the Rings is the much more mature of the two films.

It's so rare that a movie comes along that generates a gigantic amount of hype and then actually lives up to all of the expectations created by it. Titanic didn't do it, Pearl Harbor didn't do it, Armageddon didn't do it, and The Phantom Menace didn't even come close. The Lord of the Rings is one of the few movies that comes along that generates a huge amount of hype and then lives up to it, and this is even more impressive given the fact that the movie is not just meant to be fun entertainment, the way that movies like Harry Potter or Independence Day or Men In Black (all of which lived up to the hype) are. This was made from a classic novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, and the movie was miraculously able to re-create the quality of Tolkien's story. There is nothing superfluous or gratuitous in The Lord of the Rings, and the film itself is tremendously well made. There are stunningly convincing set designs and costumes, the special effects are neither excessive nor lacking, and the pace of the story provides an engaging way to enjoy the fantastic adventure. One of my favorite things about it was the way that natural settings were manipulated just to the point that you know that nothing like it could really exist in the real world. In most cases, this is done simply with accenting or muting the colors of the atmosphere or, in other cases, through the addition of such things as tremendous waterfalls and beautifully twisted trees in the mysterious woods.
There are some fantastic battle scenes that are reminiscent of the battle scenes in Braveheart (although also manipulated to attain an otherworldly effect), the film's score has clearly been influenced by the best parts of Schindler's List, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and even the Back to the Future films. The film does have its shortcomings, such as the unfortunate fact that the wizard's duel was terribly clichéd (although still well presented), but the rest of the movie more than makes up for things like that. The casting in the film is excellent as well, despite the problems that almost always follow with any kind of casting. I loved seeing Cate Blanchett (who I will always remember as the greatest Queen Elizabeth ever, followed very closely Judy Dench), and I was amazed at how well Elijah Wood portrayed Frodo because I had serious doubts about that role, much like I do about Toby McGuire playing Spiderman. I also loved all of the relatively smaller characters, such as Hugo Weaving's character Lord Elrond (although for the entire movie I kept waiting for him to say in his monotonous voice, `One of these jobs has a future, Mr. Anderson, and one of them does not.'). I was very impressed with Sean Astin's character and performance, although he will still never pass up his role as Mikey in The Goonies (definitely among the most fun movies ever made  right up there with the Back to the Future series).
The first installment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy has proved to be a gigantic cinematic event. I guess I don't really need to mention that, seeing how you people have all voted it past The Godfather on the IMDb Top 250 (hmm, I'm not sure if it was THAT good!), but I think it's worth mentioning anyway. Peter Jackson, the director, is surely in good spirits by now, given the mediocre (at best) career that he has led up to the point where he signed on to direct all three Lord of the Rings films, and surely if he keeps up the same good work that he delivered with The Fellowship of the Ring, the rest of us are going to be kept pretty happy as well.