Review: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Posted by: Tom Milroy  •  December 19, 2001 @ 10:11pm

Filed under: Reviews

I have trouble with movies that are three hours long - the Skittles never make it to the end, and unless you get the jumbo drink for eleven dollars, you get thirsty. Having said that, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was time well spent. The movie keeps moving, with only one or two slow parts. (Enough close-ups of the ring already, we know it's dangerous!) I never got around to reading The Lord of the Rings books, so everything in the movie was a surprise, and I wasn't let down like so many of the book-reading snobs we all know.

Elijah Wood plays the lead character, Frodo Baggins, who inherits a ring from Bilbo Baggins. Frodo is not sure whether to wear the ring or destroy it. So he leaves on a quest to show the audience great-looking scenery and cool-looking bad guys and monsters. The Gandalf character is a cross between Dumbledore from Harry Potter and Obi-Wan of Star Wars. I'm a sucker for wizards... I want to be one. Liv Tyler has a small role as a, well... I'm not sure, but she looks great and speaks in elf language. Cate Blanchett is also in the movie as some sort of long-haired, luminous woman who looks like she belongs in a shampoo commercial.

One thing you'll notice about The Fellowship of the Ring, it looks fantastic. It looks like it cost a lot of money to make. As we all know, it did cost a lot of money and New Line Cinema will make it all back, if not this year, then next Christmas and the Christmas after that, when parts two and three [of The Lord of the Rings triology] are released. You've gotta love any movie with characters named "Frodo" and "Bilbo" and "Gandalf"!

Tags: The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien, Peter Jackson, Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen

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