Movie Review: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (SPOILERS)

Copyright 2002 Bobby Bodenheimer. All Rights Reserved

The first hour of the movie sets the story and introduces Gandalf, Frodo, and several of the major characters. I thought this part was pretty well done. Unfortunately Jackson doesn't keep it up. Once the party reaches Rivendell, he stops character development altogether. We never get to know Legolas or Gimli as we should. The movie after Rivendell is one tedious fight scene after another, broken up by shots of sweeping vistas that look like New Zealand. Two hours of vistas with ho-hum stock special effects and stock fight scenes (also with stock special effects) aren't worth the time it takes to endure them.

Additionally, as a Tolkien fan, I don't object to things like the omission of Tom Bombadil, which was done to save time, or even to changing Arwen's role, which was done because the movie industry feels like they need a strong female role in the movie to appeal to modern audiences. There are numerous other nitpicks that one could make with the differences between the movie and details of the books, but the major differences are so startling that we really don't need to. These gratuitous changes in some sense reflect the hubris of the director in thinking that he can "improve" the story in various ways by making them. Unfortunately, he seems to lack the basic story-telling sense to pull them off. As a result, they destroy the coherence of the movie as a whole.

A listing of some of them are:

1. Aragorn's characterization as someone who has refused the ability or desire to rule. And what was up with Boromir calling Aragorn "brother" at the end? What was wrong with "I have failed. Go to Minas Tirith and save my people"?
2. Elrond's characterization as being extremely self-interested. Elrond is one of the mightiest figures in Middle-Earth, has seen three ages of the world, and knows as well as anyone that the elves have failed as many if not more times than humans in fighting the Dark Lord. To make such a major character change in a relatively minor but important character is just stupid.As a lesser aside, I thought the choice of actors was very poor too, and he reminded me too much of his bad-guy character in the Matrix. In any event, he in no way looked "mighty among both Elves and Men."
3. Frodo asking Aragorn for permission to take the ring into Mordor alone. Why have this by-play? Frodo goes off without telling anyone in the books because he wants to remove the temptation of the ring from the rest of the fellowship. If he doesn't do that, then a three foot hobbit going to Mordor by his own choice is not very smart.
4. The extremely tedious tottering staircase in Moria.
5. The whole scene in Lothlorien was goofy. It was rushed, and looked like some sort gloomy cave, not the heart of elvendom in Middle-Earth. And while I have considerable admiration for Cate Blanchett as an actress, she didn't come across as the mightiest elf in Middle Earth.
6. The wizard battles were just ridiculously bad. And why mangle the story so much that Saruman and Gandalf have a discussion about the Palantir instead of it being a surprise later in the story?
7. As a minor complaint, the Balrog looked too much like a "cool movie monster" rather than the kind of being that would inspire fear and panic in elf and dwarf.
8. Another minor complaint is that in the battle on Weathertop, it looked too much like Aragorn was winning, when in fact Aragorn would have had little power in an open confrontation with five of the Nine (especially when one is the Witch-King).
9. A final minor complaint is that Sauron also looks way too goofy to be the Dark Lord.

Sadly, though, in the end it this movie is almost unendurable.

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