Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring Dir: Peter Jackson. Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Sean Astin, John Rhys Davies, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler. Hmmm. This is a real shame. For it could have been one of the greatest fantasy movies so far made. One of those films to feature in everyone’s top 10 lists. It could have been a perennial Christmas favourite. If it hadn’t of been for that last hour. That dull, seen it all before, mostly Gandalf-less last hour. And it’s frustrating because the first two hours make for stunning and engaging viewing. Opening with Blanchett narrating the tale of how the ring fell in to the hands of Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm, looking worryingly like David Essex), from the start Jackson creates a beautifully believable Middle Earth, and once the action moves on to Frodo’s quest to destroy the ring, it’s exciting and involving material. Nearly all the performances are outstanding, with Elijah Wood surprising the most, looking wide eyed and on edge, but at the same time managing to make Frodo truly worth caring about. McKellen is a superb Gandalf, infinitely wise, and (nearly) always elegant, whilst Lee makes for an imposing main villain. Sean’s Astin and Bean are also worthy of note, turning in the performance of their careers so far. Infact it’s only the usually reliable Cate Blanchett who spoils things, oddly whispery and surprisingly stilted, though fortunately she’s on screen for less than five minutes, so doesn’t get the chance to ruin things too much.

The special effects are simply amazing throughout, easily the best yet seen on the silver screen, though occasionally the action moves so fast that you don’t get the time to enjoy them, but several sequences in the first two hours that are truly jaw dropping, and much of Middle Earth is truly beautiful to behold. But after McKellen ‘disappears’, about two hours in, things get a little dull. Yep, there’s more battle scenes, a bit of moralising, and the inevitable betrayal (well, kind of) from a major character, and then one final big fight scene, but none of it is even close to being as spectacular/interesting as what has happened earlier on in the film. It’s not really Jackson whose to blame for that disappointing last hour either – indeed it’s Tolkien’s fault for dragging out things so, and writing such a poor ending. It’s just a shame that Jackson didn’t compact these events in to twenty minutes instead of sixty. The majority of the (evil) children in the cinema where I saw the film seemed quite bored and agitated throughout, and when one screeched ‘yes it’s over!’ at the end, much laughter suggested it was a sentiment substantially agreed with. So there was perhaps no need to make it a PG certificate – and if only Jackson had been allowed a fifteen, or even eighteen, certificate, he could have turned out a fantastically dark and original film - but then Hollywood economics would never allow that to happen. So okay, in places this is great cinema. It’s just a shame that it ran out of steam long before the credits rolled. Alex Finch.

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