The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

User Review

• 

  Barneyonmovies

  6 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: The only reason that Peter Jackson's first faithful recreation of the Lord of The Rings books successfully engages you for almost four hours is that it does a great job of building multiple characters that you care about so that the high stakes matter on a personal level. You might hope that that was the case in a film this long of course, but it is definitely at the centre of everything here and is aided by a set of convincing performances. Couple that with some truly spectacular visuals and astounding world building as well as a sprinkle of humour to lighten the whole thing up and what you've got is a reasonable blockbuster that does its legendary source material justice to some degree.
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: The thing I've always struggled with around these stories though is that they never really become about anything, and so the literal hours of plot exposition and exploration ends up feeling rather tedious. Now you could of course argue that that's the case with many big epics, but most at the very least have something meaningful or grounded in humanity at their core whilst this really is just thick fantasy plot purely for the sake of it. That wouldn't be such an issue if the film wasn't so long, but there are swathes of jibberish and tangents here that make for something that ends up feeling aimless and actually rather unnecessary - especially considering it doesn't even conclude anywhere within its own pointless boundaries.
  VERDICT: Whilst bouyed by a focus on world-building and characters that you can invest in and care about, Peter Jackson's 'Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring,' is a baggy and overlong blockbuster with bags of exposition that amounts to nothing remotely meaningful or grounded. If I'm honest, I really don't get the love.

  Like?

  1 member likes this review.