Directed by Peter Jackson
Review Copyright © 2001 Aaron M. Renn
Conclusion: Marginal - A poor imitation of the original
Peter Jackson succeeds in turning Tolkien's majestic fantasy epic into a generic swords and sorcery flick with about as much complexity, richness and back story as THE MUMMY. After three hours of semi-identical battles with semi-identical hordes of bad guys, I was about to fall asleep. On the plus side, the settings deserve the acclaim they've received. New Zealand is much like what one would think Middle Earth should be. And the cinematography and costumes are top notch.
Much of what makes Tolkien's Lord of the Rings such a standout is the incredible richness of the world building. There are literally volumes of material underlying the history and cosmology of LotR. Tolkien actually went so far as to invent whole other languages. This literary richness is all but impossible to translate to the screen. For the most part, Jackson didn't even try. He just stripped it out and reduced the plot to its essentials. A few visual touchstones remain, such as perfectly round hobbit hole doors, that clearly tie setting to what we visualize a Middle Earth. But these aren't enough to rescue the film from Generic Fantasy Quest Syndrome.
What the film version of Lord of the Rings really needed was someone like David Lynch at the helm. I've long admired his interpretation of DUNE, in fact preferring it to the novel. I'll grant you that many people hated the film, but even its harshest critics will have to agree that the film changed forever the way we looked at Dune. Consider the strangely warped Guild navigators who "fold space" versus the merely blue eyed human navigators of the novel. The Sci-Fi Channel mini-series version owes almost as much to Lynch as it does to Frank Herbert. Sadly, no such thing will likely be said about this film.
Rather than reducing the novel to fit on the screen and trying to remain "true" to the plot, I think Jackson would have been better served to use the story as inspiration for a real film, rather than a pared-to-the-bone books-on-film version of the novel. My favorite part: the music by Enya. I've long been a fan of her song Lothlorien and wondered if maybe it might be used in the film. It was not, but obviously Enya has a thing for Tolkien.
I saw this film in a packed theater opening weekend. The reactions of the crowd at the end were not positive, though in fairness a lot of the this was probably befuddlement of Tolkien novices expecting a self contained story and parents dragooned into seeing it over the holidays. It will be interesting to see if we observe a rapid falloff in box office receipts or whether LotR will hold its initial strength.
Interestingly, Fellowship of the Ring is currently rated the number one film of all time at IMDB.
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