Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring - The review
Part 1 of the greatest Fantasy Story of all time.
What stands out in this adaptation is just how close to the source material Mr Jackson and his team came.
The books are so well written that you have a clear image in your head of what the lands look like and how the characters would look, the amazing thing about these films is that everything is spot on.
Its not often you get an ensemble cast of 9 main characters and each of them end up being strong but Peter Jackson manages to make sure every one of the fellowship means something and is important to the cause, but for me 2 performances really stand out in this first film:
Sir Ian Mckellen as the wizard Gandalf and Viggo Mortensen as the mysterious Strider / Aragorn. Both Actors are on excellent form, that is to take nothing away from everyone else, you cant really say anyone put in a bad performance, its just these 2 really command the screen.
Its safe to say Peter Jackson couldn't fit every aspect of the book into his film, we would have been sat in the cinema for days if he had done.
Some people feel the exclusion of Tom Bombadil was a bad decision.
Peter Jackson had already thought of this and had the ultimate response to this "i never said it didn't happen in our telling of this story, I just didn't show it" and this is key, its not that certain elements from the book are ignored its just that they were not shown and this keeps the story strong.
Yes certain aspects of the story were adjusted for timing and the flow, and certain characters were given more screen time due to these changes (Arwen being one).
However the clever thing is that at no point do these changes take away from the story or leave you hating the changes.
This certainly set a new bar for fantasy films, and has a very strong claim to be the best part 1 of any trilogy!
PD's Rating - 8 / 10
GR's Review
The year is 2001 and cinema as we knew it was about to change forever!
Peter Jackson’s the lord of the rings trilogy had begun! And what a first film it is!
The fellowship of the ring remains one of my favourite films today and stands as one of the best most epic films ever!
Yes the run time at the time back in 2001 was absurd! Only titanic and the Schindler's List had those kind of run times and there both based on history!
This however is based on an amazing series of fantasy books!
The movie itself is stunning, the locations spot on, the characters spot on, the action spot on and the pacing spot on!
You can see what and why these films transformed modern cinema!
Unknown actors at the time made instantly famous although few went on to do other movies.
The scope and sheer scale these film posses is outstanding. The film while 3 hours long is set up within the first 20 minuets and you happily go along with Frodo and the gang for the rest of the time glued to the screen!
I recommend this movie and in fact trilogy to anyone and rate it today as the best movie trilogy ever! G score is 8/10
Total Rating - 16 / 20
It is only fair that the first visit to Middle earth receives our "Golden Award"
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