The Lord of the Rings
Dec. 20th, 2001 12:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreSaw it last night. Wow. Word of advice! The film runs three hours, and we had about six trailers attached, plus since they are selling out shows, they are starting late. Budget four hours for the movie.
It rocked. Seriously, this film is visually stunning, breath-taking, and manages to be funny, sad, and really frightening in all the right places. The actors are perfect! Seeing Sir Ian McKellan and Christopher Lee as Gandalf and Saurman was gorgeous. John Rhys-Davies is such a good actor that I didn't even recognize him as a dwarf until about an hour after his appearance! The hobbitts nail their roles. Peppin and Merry are wonderful comic relief, Sam is the picture of tragic devotion, and Frodo is perfect as the hero chosen by fate.
In the early parts the film is choppy. I imagine a few years down the road we'll see the six-hour director's cut. :) We start with a flashback to the end of Sauron's last attempt to rule, his destruction, and the loss of the great ring. The story moves fairly quickly from Bilbo's party to the beginning of the quest, to Bree, but there is enough to keep you interested even if you aren't distracted by the fact that New Zealand is utterly beautiful.
Once we get to Bree, things start moving. The race to Rivendell gets your heart racing (canon check! In the film Arwen meets the party and she carries Frodo across the river.) The Elves are beautiful, and the Rignwraiths terrifying. I won't say more about the plot, except to say that the Mines of Moria scared the crap out of me.
The special effects. As with everything, they were great. There were several mass CGI sequences where it was obvious that dozens of base images had been replicated to create thousand of creatures without to much duplication of motion. The Balrog is truly horrifying, a thing of both fire and flesh. There will be Oscar nods for the visual and sound effects.
Also for make-up. The orcs and the Urak-hai are bestial in the extreme, the hobbits' feet are appropriately hairy, and the dwarves and elves look much as you expect them too look.
The penguin says: Quit your job and stand in line. ****
It rocked. Seriously, this film is visually stunning, breath-taking, and manages to be funny, sad, and really frightening in all the right places. The actors are perfect! Seeing Sir Ian McKellan and Christopher Lee as Gandalf and Saurman was gorgeous. John Rhys-Davies is such a good actor that I didn't even recognize him as a dwarf until about an hour after his appearance! The hobbitts nail their roles. Peppin and Merry are wonderful comic relief, Sam is the picture of tragic devotion, and Frodo is perfect as the hero chosen by fate.
In the early parts the film is choppy. I imagine a few years down the road we'll see the six-hour director's cut. :) We start with a flashback to the end of Sauron's last attempt to rule, his destruction, and the loss of the great ring. The story moves fairly quickly from Bilbo's party to the beginning of the quest, to Bree, but there is enough to keep you interested even if you aren't distracted by the fact that New Zealand is utterly beautiful.
Once we get to Bree, things start moving. The race to Rivendell gets your heart racing (canon check! In the film Arwen meets the party and she carries Frodo across the river.) The Elves are beautiful, and the Rignwraiths terrifying. I won't say more about the plot, except to say that the Mines of Moria scared the crap out of me.
The special effects. As with everything, they were great. There were several mass CGI sequences where it was obvious that dozens of base images had been replicated to create thousand of creatures without to much duplication of motion. The Balrog is truly horrifying, a thing of both fire and flesh. There will be Oscar nods for the visual and sound effects.
Also for make-up. The orcs and the Urak-hai are bestial in the extreme, the hobbits' feet are appropriately hairy, and the dwarves and elves look much as you expect them too look.
The penguin says: Quit your job and stand in line. ****
