I hadn’t planned to write a review of the Lord of the Rings
movie until I read the two nitpick reviews on RPG.net (that appeared on
12-26-01). Both reviewers felt the
movie was true enough to the original book and, while good, deviated
nonetheless, somehow making it less than perfect.
As far as I’m concerned, the movie is a vast improvement on
the original novel, Fellowship of the Ring. The biggest stumbling block Fellowship (and its two
sequels) has is that it’s filled with a lot of boring drivel describing the
history of each tree that the book’s characters happen to pass. The movie fortunately only has to show each
tree, allowing it to focus on plot and character, the two most essential parts
of a good story! Indeed, I would argue
that if Tolkien dropped all long, boring passages of descriptive bliss, the
whole of Lord of the Rings would have been both shorter and far superior
to what was published.
Anyway, this is a review of the movie and not the book, so I’ll
stay on course and cover it.
The movie’s script was wonderful. Without going back and reading the book while watching the movie,
I can’t say how much of the book’s original dialogue was left in tact, but in
any case, it worked extremely well.
Sometimes dialogue from fantasy books sounds mighty hooky if spoken out
loud (see the movie Kull the Conqueror movie for good example of that),
but not in this case. I didn’t cringe
once.
The story and plot worked without a hitch. Even if I had no idea what Lord of the
Rings was, I would have had no problem following this movie. Except the bit where the elf witch Galadriel is tempted by the
ring. It seemed a bit over the top and
left one unfamiliar with the book wondering just what she accomplished by
passing her test and why it motivated her to up and leave.
The acting was superb and the characters were
three-dimensional. The only character
that seemed a bit underplayed and stiff was Sam. He wasn’t particularly convincing in his devotion to Frodo. Still, with the number of characters
appearing in this movie, there is only so much time to give each time on-screen,
so maybe Sam’s roll will improve in the next movie. My favorite character, by the way, was the Gimli the dwarf.
The special effects were some of the best that I’ve ever
seen. There’s little else to say about
them other than a warning: when the
movie comes out on video, the loss of resolution could make some of the effects
less than perfect or pleasant to look at, so if you want them to look as good
as they did on the silver screen, get the DVD if you can.
Quite frankly, there is nothing I can think of that I didn’t
like about this movie. It was certainly
better than the original book. In fact,
I think the guy that made this movie, Peter Jackson, ought to make the next Star
Wars movie. His version of Lord
of the Rings was certainly a billion times better than that piece of crap
Lucas released a couple of years ago.**
**If you’re curious about my opinion on The Phantom
Menace, you can find a review of it in the RPG.Net archives.
