(Review originally written at 28 June 2003)
Beautiful environments with lovely costumes combined with superb characters and and an intense story...the result: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
Don't let the 3 hour + running time scare you of, like so many long movies it's very well worth seeing. Never has a fantasy world looked so realistic as in Lord of the Rings. All the sets are very detailed and have a realistic feeling as well as the characters and the different races of Middle Earth.
The greatest strength of this movie is not the story itself. The story itself is actually pretty simple, basically it's just about the Ring and the quest to destroy it. No, the greatest strength are the characters, the look of Middle Earth and the action sequences. Rarely has an adventure movie looked so good and has been so tense and enjoyable to watch.
But let's not over praise it, the movie has it flaws and weak spots. There are some unnecessary and boring scene's (especially in the Extended Edition) but for an 3 hour + movie that's maybe just unavoidable. And no matter how awesome everything looks, the special effects aren't always top-class, I'm a firm believer that the movie would have been better if ILM provided the special effects. But let's not judge the movie for what it could have been but let's judge it for what it is. Also, sometimes the Hobbits (Sam, Pippin and Merry) are border line irritating. Another thing that disturbed me was the editing, in my opinion it was extremely bad done in some of the scene's (For instance in the wizards battle between Gandalf and Saruman) but having some editing experience myself I might pay extra attention to this things...
But in this case all those flaws and weak spots are forgiven, for The Fellowship of the Ring truly is a wonderful movie that you simply must have seen at least once in your life.
Already a classic!
9/10
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