lotr

After a whole year’s worth of crap and pap (we all thought last year was bad) now comes a season of supposed great contenders all nipping at each other’s heels for Oscar gold. Knowing, too, that it is often a matter of buzz and spin control touting the over-importance of otherwise flat movies during this time (notice how Ali came and went after first a huge promotional awards push followed by terrible box office and worse reviews) it was with great trepidation that I went to see Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings.

Thankfully though, if not to my surprise, LOTR is a sure crowd-pleaser and critic pleaser.

This first of three movies, this one entitled Fellowship of the Ring, is only the beginning of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (like I really need to be telling you this) And if all of them are as grandiose and “big” as this one is and reaches, we should be in for a real treat of a triptych.

Now to start, let’s get something straight. Probably most important: I’ve never read any of the books in the trilogy nor have I read the Hobbit. Frankly, I went in blind.

Here’s the general gist of the story. A long time ago, a lot of power rings were dispensed to all the various creature groups (elves, gnomes, etc…). One of these rings, though, was the ruler of all the rings and was used in turn to control the other rings bringing general destruction to all. And so lasted the reign of terror until one brave soldier cut the hand (and the ring) off of the possessor of the all-powerful evil. Rather than destroy it, the soldier kept it and went mad and so on and so on. The ring over time was lost and forgotten and taken to the mountains while the world got back to business as usual until…

There was a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit) who found the ring and has kept it safe in The Shire, home to the hobbits. We join the story officially on Bilbo’s birthday as he passes the ring to his nephew Frodo who, whether he knows it or likes it or not, will have to go on a quest to destroy the ring before it is discovered and recovered by the all powerful evil still brewing after all these years.

Joining Frodo on his quest is the ultimate in loyal compatriots- Sam- and two other hoodlum hobbits that provide comic relief. But, naturally, 4 hobbits don’t quite fill out a Fellowship, so after a big summit with all the represented creatures, 9 members total step forward, one from each group (elf, hobbit, dwarf, etc…) to do some brutal aiding and abetting.

The journey itself is treacherous, falling uncomfortably between the exhaustive mountain hiking in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and the holistic land traversing in The Man Who Would Be King. Frankly put, this quest is nothing to laugh at. In fact, after questing with Frodo for upwards of three hours, it seems he’s barely begun at all when the credits finally roll. And so we’re left another year until the next installment.

All in all, the movie is a wonder to behold. The scope is large and the spirit is larger. Admittedly, I still don’t understand what the big deal is, but I would say that the movie certainly did transport me to a fully functional, fully believable fantasy world well beyond the grasp of many a creature feature before it. Having not read the source material this is perhaps not a comment I should be making, but the respect that can be seen on screen for the story is unreal. So much so, it’s hard to put in words the feeling of total immersion I felt.

It is, in fact, this total respect that holds this away from being another Willow, for example, or another empty sci-fi romp. LOTR is simply grand all around in the biggest sense of that word. Never trivialized or dumbed down or treated as anything less than true high drama, LOTR succeeds where so many others failed because it lets you believe as the filmmakers must believe in the world it creates for the viewer. The idea that I found the story hard to get behind or support is fairly a matter of my feelings on the genre itself. I don’t feel it accurately reflects on how well the narrative is in fact unspoiled. In fact, I look forward to being swept away again come Christmas 2002 (when the next LOTR movie will be released). Don’t miss the chance to join in The Fellowship of the Ring.
Dan

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