Posted by L-train at spider-mtc-tk023.proxy.aol.com on January 20, 2002 at 01:23:10:
Every once in a great while, a special movie comes along. One so
exciting and magical that is takes you to another world. In fact, when you
leave the theater you have entered another world... one that has evolved to
include this revolution in storytelling. Lord of the Rings is NOT one of
these movies. Lord of the Rings plays like a bad Star Wars rip off played
by the WB crowd. Call it Dawson Creek meets Willow.
>The story surrounds an evil ring (oh my!) with the power of
>destroying the world as we know it. The world, in this case,is
>Middle Earth... a magical paradise filled with monsters, elves and
>small hairy foot munchins called hobbits. Oh yeah, humans live among
>these creatures as well and threaten to destroy the world (of
>course) with their selfish and evil ways.
>Directed by Peter Jackson, a small time indie director who started
>his career making splatter horror films (e.g. Dead Alive), one would
>expect uncompromising B-movie fun. The kind of hack and slash
>adventure that made Conan the Barbarian a good bloody time! Instead
>we get hack Spielberg filled with a swelling classic score, computer
>generated beasties and high-octane action scenes as loud as anything
>you heard in Jurassic Park. A film like this should flop. How many
>times do we have to see the same incarnation of Star Wars before we
>simply get sick of the thing?! But it has succeeded, unfortunately,
>IN SPITE of this fact. In an era where selling out is now the norm,
>Peter Jackson's choice in making a cliche $180 Hollywood fantasy
>film is his way of getting on his knees and begging the audience for
>love. He doesn't want to make the next Star Wars, exactly. He wants
>to become the next George Lucas! That is, an overgrown nerd who is
>the sole owner of gold mine he unearthed before anyone else could
>get their grubby paws on it! It is annoying to hear people call this
>movie the Star Wars of Fantasy (did people forget that Star Wars IS
>fantasy). Surely what they mean is 'medieval' fantasy, say, like
>Dungeon and Dragons? But, I have to ask, who cares? Isn't the point
>of fantasy to take us to a place WE HAVE NEVER BEEN before. Elves
>and orges and the like are so familiar that there is nothing
>FANTASTIC about them. That what made Shrek so hilarious. It was
>poking fun at it's own familiarity and the audience's as well.
>Surely an argument can be made that there is nothing wrong with
>making a fun, good old-fashioned b-movie. Say, an action fantasy
>film in the spirit of Sinbad the Pirate or other serial films. But
>is Lord of the Rings, with it's running time of 3hrs, good old
>fashioned fun?!?! It takes two hours to get to the real heart of the
>movie, the sword and sorcery fight scenes. But by then you may not
>care. I didn't. Rock climbing a 14er might be fun but it's not
>something you go do to kill a couple hours after a long day of work!
>It would be one thing if the movie held up it's end of the bargain
>and proved at least as entertaining as a Star Wars rehash. But here
>is the film's biggest disapppointment! Consider the dialogue which
>really isn't really dialogue at all. The lines are, more or less,
>'disclaimers' telling us something about Middle Earth. It's almost
>as if Peter Jackson is trying so hard to be true to the book that
>he's cramming any reference of Middle Earth that he can! This turns
>Lord of the Rings into a sorta Discover channel special on the
>magical world of JR Tolkein.
>Elijah Wood, playing Frodo Baggins (the Luke Skywalker of the
>group), is entrusted with the evil ring and sent out to destroy it
>in Mt.Doom (how original). Though his performance is palpable,
>eventually he becomes your typical tortured-with-selfdoubt everyman
>that Jimmy Steward made famous fifty years ago. Will Frodo surcumb
>to evil? Will he turn to the dark side... er, fall victim to the
>ring's evil? What do you think.
>Samwise, Frodo's friend, played by Sean Astin, is entertaining at
>times. He seems to be the only one that didn't forget that he is
>playing an other worldly being. He plays his hobbit as a loyal
>golden retriever who could easily surcumb to his own appetites at
>any time, including his undying loyalty to stay by his friend's side
>even if it will hurt them both in the end. But we see so little of
>him that he plays like one of Peter Jackson's crammed lines of
>dialogue: he's only in here as a reference to the book. Oh yeah,
>there is a swashbucking stud-of-a-human swordsman named Strider.
>He's the umpteenth reincarnation of Han Solo but like a million
>hacks after him he comes off like a live action video game
>character. His idea of acting tough is to display a smirk, followed
>by a stoic face, back to a smirk again. People obviously forget that
>what made Han Solo so entertaining (and consequently, tough!) was
>that he outsmarted you just when you thought you second guessed him.
>The more dangerous things got, the cooler he did. Harrison Ford's
>dead pan performance is what gave his character gravity. Playing an
>action hero like a robot is not dead pan.
>Everyone has praised Ian McKellan for his turn as Obi-Wan, er, the
>Wizard Gandolf. But if you can get passed the ridicilous FAKE makeup
>and stupid costume (he looks like ZZ top dressed for a Star Trek
>convention) you'll find he's simply going through the motions that
>Alec Guiness did in Star Wars more than 20 years ago. At least he
>seems to be the only one having fun (which is ironic considering his
>character disappears early on in the movie only to reappear near the
>end to be killed off).
>I could go on and on but what's the point. Am I supposed to like
>Lord of the Rings because of the classic book it is based upon?
>Well, I propose something utterly blasphemous...that maybe the book
>isn't that good to begin with. Surely JR Tolkien deserves
>recognition for helping to reintroduce fantasy and mythology back
>into the modern era. But his characters and stories are so dated,
>I'm afraid, that they hardly justify a big Hollywood movie of the
>same name. Whoever said a book must become a movie to succeed
>anyways? Sometimes there is value in simply being a book. Obviously
>the guys who made the Harry Potter Movie forgot that that's what
>made Harry Potter such a craze to begin with. It made reading 'hip'
>again. Clearly, Lord of the Rings inspired artists like George Lucas
>and Steven Spielberg who did for movies what Tolkein did for books.
>In my mind, job well done. So why not stop while you're ahead?
>Anyhow, IN SPITE of what I say most of you will leave the theater
>swearing upwards and downwards that it's the best movie you ever
>saw. But before you do consider the embarrassing howler at it's
>center:if the forces of evil threatening Middle Earth are so
>dangerous and powerful then why are they trapped in something as
>wimpy (and as obvious) as a single gold ring? Oh, I forgot...because
>JRR Tolkein said so. Lord of the Rings represents the latest dumbing
>down of fantasy films.
>
>GRADE: C
>
For more great reviews contact Louis Cseke csekelm@hotmail.c