THE LORD OF THE RINGS:  THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING *** (out of ****) Starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellan, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Liv Tyler, Christopher Lee, and Ian Holm. Directed & co-written for the screen by Peter Jackson 2001 PG13 First things first:  I have not read J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.”  Typically, when I hear a book whose merits are as hotly debated as the “Rings”—it runs the gamut between “novel of the century” and “juvenile trash”—I go out and read the thing and make up my own mind.  But while that may be a suitable approach for “The Great Gatsby,” weighing in at just under 200 pages, I can’t work up the effort to plunge into the thousands of pages that make up the “Rings.”  So I am in the position—possibly unique among critics—to review the film without comparing it to the text, which is more important anyway, because a film should be rated on its own merits, and not on faithfulness or lack thereof to the source material. The film “The Fellowship of the Ring” is first and foremost a Great Big Adventure.  It has a great quest across sweeping landscapes, it has battles, it has magic, it has heroes—some reluctant and some eager—and it has deplorable, inhuman villains.  The setting is Middle-earth (played wonderfully by New Zealand), which is a land of goblins, fairies, elves, trolls, princesses, heroes, etc.  The quest is to destroy the Ring of Power—which is ultimately powerful and ultimately evil, and corrupts those who hold it—by hurling it into the volcano where it was created.  The Ring is in the hands of Frodo Baggins (Elijah Woods), a member of a dwarf-like agrarian species, called Hobbits, that like to eat a lot.  His quest is given to him by the wizard Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellan), who accompanies him on-and-off.  Along the way they pick up an elf, two humans, and a dwarf, as well as several other Hobbits, and they fight off the minions of evil sent by the spirit of the dread sorcerer Saron (or Sauron or Sarek or Charon--be patient, I'm not Brent Spiner).  Both the Ring and Sauron, its creator, are trying to reunite so they can rule the world, cover it with darkness, turn everything evil, etc.
		The “human” element of the film mostly comes from how the Hobbits—who are docile and reluctant to fight or even leave the house—face conflict with the forces of evil.  They provide an entertaining contrast to the elves, dwarves, and humans who join them on their quest in the second half of the film, all of whom are battle-hardened and manfully stave off waves of orcs.  The cast is uniformly good, especially Elijah Wood and Ian McKellan, both of whom display varying degrees of courage, fear, and desperation, and create the kind of screen friendship that seems to have existed for years before shooting even started.  If there is a weak link in the cast, it is only a slight one in Viggo Mortensen as the human Strider.  He is the more traditional human hero and heir to the human throne, and like all characters in this role must overcome his self-doubt and lead bravely.  The fault is not the actor’s, although Mortensen is more forgettable than many of the faces around him, but the narrowness the character is assigned in the genre.  This narrowness is made more apparent when he is next to the dependable Irish character actor Sean Bean, playing a fellow human.  Bean’s character has more depth and more interesting internal conflicts, even if we know his fate the instant he comes on screen, talking with a finger on his lips. “The Fellowship of the Ring” is a sweeping technical achievement, combining the real-life countryside of New Zealand with all manner of fantastic landscapes, including the subterranean temples of the dwarves, the terrifying tall spire of the wizard Christopher Lee, and the dizzying deep mines he carves out of the earth.  Especially effective sequences include the dream world where Frodo finds himself when he uses the Ring to make himself invisible:  it is a frightful places of shadows and howls, populated only by faint reminders of what is around him in the outside world.  The monsters thrown at our heroes are marvels of walking effects, including a three-story fire demon and swarms of goblins.  But the best monsters aren’t pure evil, they are the sudden bursts of greed and powerlust brought on by those tempted by the Ring, and these are the most frightening moments in the film. If “The Fellowship of the Ring” has any shortcomings, they arrive when the film is swept up by its own sound and fury, and becomes repetitious.  There are too many sequences in which the Hobbits flee from monsters when one or two chases would do.  There are too many tremendous battles in which our nine protagonists smite dozens upon dozens of angry creatures while receiving only minimal damage.  A little too much of the movie is our band of heroes plodding through the woods, across streams, and through yawning fields, only to cross more woods, more streams, and more fields.  Each of these chases, struggles, and sweeping vistas are acted, choreographed, and photographed well enough, making it difficult for me to pick which one should be jettisoned.  But as the mythology of the books comes out in rapid fire instead of unfolding leisurely, I wish more time had been spent on Middle-earth instead of just fighting and running through it.  As for the special effects and fights, they are good on a technical level, as craft, and many will flock to stare at them googly-eyed over and over again.  But as art they are only at best exciting and seldom awesome.  I began to wonder if “Fellowship” is trying to top “Gladiator”—for every bagman Russell Crowe dispatches in a matter of seconds, “Fellowship” wants to kill three or four—which is a shame because “Fellowship” is a smarter film than “Gladiator” and need not stoop to one-upmanship.
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			Page two of "Fellowship of the Ring" review.