Reviews

"Fellowship of the Ring" has absolutely everything a movie needs. First of all the cast and their performances were top notch. I was not disappointed at all. At first I was somewhat skeptical about Elijah Wood playing Frodo Baggins, and I was never too impressed with his acting ability to begin with. Now after seeing this film, I can't see any other actor portraying Frodo, other than young Elijah. I was very pleased by his performance, but very disappointed that he did not get an Oscar nomination. As for Viggo Mortenson playing the heroic Aragorn, I knew he would be great the moment I saw him in the trailer for the film months before it was released. He looked and breathed Aragorn, just as I imagined Aragorn would when I read the books years ago. Sean Bean was terrific as the brave, but weak -willed Boromir. And of course Sir Ian McKellan was perfect as Gandalf the Grey. In fact, he is Gandalf. Every time he was shown on screen, he stole the scene. I'm just upset he didn't win the Oscar. The rest of the cast was great as well. I was very happy with their performances.

The scenery and cinematography is indeed flawless. After seeing this movie, I immediately wanted to visit New Zealand. It's as if New Zealand is Middle Earth. The art direction and costume design is extraordinarily detailed. Everything from the celestial buildings of the Elves in Rivendell, to the Celtic designs in the Dwarven armor, to the dark and Satanic vision of Sauron's fortress are truly awesome. The make-up and creature effects are the best I've ever seen. The Orcs aren't just stupid, mindless killing machines. They really are terrifying. The Black Riders were my favorite though. They stole the scene every time they were on. As for the visual and computer generated effects, you couldn't do any better. The demonic Balrog was amazing. It was definitely one of the movie's best parts. And of course, Peter Jackson's direction was top-notch. I was so pleased when I found out he was doing the film, and not some huge, big-time Hollywood filmmaker like Lucas, Spielberg or Cameron. Don't get me wrong, they are brilliant filmmakers, but they all tend to throw in something very cutesy for the little kids so the movie would be more commercial. I knew of course Jackson would never do that. The action sequences and battle scenes are very exciting, and the ending leaves you wanting more. I felt it ended very well.

Overall a perfect score for a perfect film.

This movie and the whole trilogy deserves all the praise it has received.

I had been worried about seeing it because of how much Peter Jackson re-wrote "Two Towers" and presented scenes that undermined some of Tolkien's fundamental ideas. This time, Jackson followed Tolkien more closely and the worst that can be claimed are sins of omission. It's a real shame we didn't get to see Christopher Lee in this move; he totally rocked in the previous films. Telling us to wait for the "extended" version isn't right. Maybe Jackson should have foregone one of the too many endings in ROTK to give Lee some film time. That said, all the elements that worked in the previous movies were absolutely glorious in this film. The one new thing that I would add to so much that has already been written is that big kudos must go to the great Tolkien artists Alan Lee and John Howe whose artistry shaped so much of the imagery from the first moments of FOTR to the final scenes of ROTK. This historic trilogy would not have been the same without them. The LOTR enterprise has clearly been a great labor of love from all who worked on it over the years, and this final installment was a crowning achievement.

I will say there were some amazing special effects, and action scenes, but overall, "Inception" left me bored. This is most likely due to the fact that the movie is close to nothing but 3 hours of fending off enemies that are nothing but nameless faceless "white blood cells" defending the subconscious. It just felt like it dragged on forever. That along with the fact that I felt zero attachment to the characters in the movie and an overly ridged dreamscapes made this film feel horridly sterile. Not to mention, the film felt very jumpy. As in it jumps from scene to scene to scene every few minutes. In fact, the film may have been trying to pull off a feat so grand, that it leaves you thinking its all just a big jumbled mess not worth the frustration of following. I can deal with a complex film, but I feel that the jumping around to all the scenes occurring simultaneously made the film lose focus. In other words, I watched the movie play out, but it did not pull me into it. I was a detached viewer, no emotional involvement whatsoever. On top of that, the film was honestly very predictable and had very little in the revelation department. You could always see the tracks before the train went over them so to speak. One aspect of the movie that just completely dumbfounded me was that the film managed to be both imaginative, yet uncreative at the same time. There is so much potential for creativity in a movie about dreaming, but this film decided to make the dreams seem more like virtual reality then actual dreams.

However, the biggest disappointment of this movie is the fact that everyone claimed it was an intelligent thinking mans film. This film has not exercised one bit of critical thinking in my mind. It feels overly superficial and hardly a film that can spark deep philosophical debate. After watching "Inception" it did not have me contemplating the big questions in life one bit. When it ended, it ended, and that was that.