Review of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) by Pablo D — 04 Dec 2013

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring review.

I have always viewed the Lord of the Rings trilogy as the incarnation of the word epic. It is bathed in moments that will pull out a tear rout of even the manliest of men just by a monologue, a part of the soundtrack, a victory in a battle, a moment were friendship shines. It will make you cheer for the main characters and join them in their journey. I could talk about this masterpiece (yes I refer to the trilogy as one experience) all lifelong, so I will do my best to summarize my feeling in these three parts. My username is pablo2896 in IMDb and Pablo22in Metacritic by the way, so you can visit my three reviews. So let's get to the first one, the first movie. The Fellowship of the Ring tells the story of a young hobbit who is put in an overwhelming quest to rid his land of evil. And for me this is one aspect that makes me tear up a bit, the fact that one so small can squeeze out so much courage from himself. And this is no other than Elijah Wood's Frodo Baggins. Elijah does an amazing job acting as the main character. So the movie starts with a prologue explaining the founding of the one ring and how its master was defeated long ago. This clearly shows you what sort of a jaw dropping ride you are going into. It shows the amazing achievement of the special effects and the scale of these films. Then we are introduced to Frodo (Elijah Wood), this hobbit lives a perfect live in The Shire, a town were these hobbits live, eat and smoke weed (yes they even say it in the movie). His uncle Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm) has carried the One Ring for a while, this entity that is consisted of the other half of the soul of Sauron, the evil bad guy. So he leaves it to Frodo who is then given the (almost) impossible task of taking it to the fires of Mt. Doom, the only place it can be destroyed and by doing so, vanquishing evil. And in the mean time Sauron sends his nine wraith to find this ring and kill everybody who goes in their way. Easy, right? Gandalf a powerful wizard, played by no other than Ian McKellen who perfectly portrays you the wisdom, the charm and the power of this conjurer, swears to protect Frodo at all costs in this journey and they take Sam with them, played by Sean Astin (who's incredible acting and character I will describe in my third review) Frodo's gardener with them. In their journey they meet some characters like Merry (Dominic Monaghan), Pippin (Billy Boyd) and no other than the badass Aragorn who 's actor Viggo Mortensen plays it amazingly, he is able to make you know he is a badass. So to summarize that part this movie has some of the best character developments I've seen in any movie. In the elvish sanctuary Rivendell they form the Fellowship of the Ring, which is consisted by the six characters I mentioned up there and three more, Boromir (a man), Legolas (an elf) and Gimli (a dwarf). Sean Bean, the actor who plays Boromir, does a good job in setting this character's conflicts and desires for the Ring of power, but it portrays his honor and loyalty also. Legolas and Gimli I thought would be more like filler characters but you feel interest for them and you connect to them immediately. The same can be said for Merry and Pippin. From Rivendell they embark to their destination, Mordor the Land of evil. God, I have to talk about the montage of the Fellowship traveling. It is an epic compilation of amazing landscapes and hair rising soundtrack. This is where I really felt the epicness of the movie. By the way this was pretty much the half of the movie, the buildup. So was it a typical long boring buildup? No, not in its least. They encounter dangers like spying crows sent by Saruman, an evil wizard who sides with Sauron at the beginning of the movie, and a treacherous storm (also sent by Saruman, what a dick) in the middle of a dangerous mountain which forces them to take another path, the Mines of Moria. Gimli explains to them that the dwarfs will welcome them in there but he's WRONG. They get there and the place is a graveyard, a graveyard made from dwarfs! So to summarize it they get trapped in there (blame the giant octopus) and now have to get across the dwarven city. Warning: EPICNESS! They soon find out they are not alone, and no other than Pippin (fool of a Took!) wakes up every goblin infesting the mines. This leads to an awesome battle were you are cheering for the Fellowship while it slays goblins and a cave troll! They escape and make a run for the bridge of Khazad Dumb with an army of goblins on their backs and an awesome score which is beyond epic. But they realize something else is in those mines. A Balrog. A foe so powerful, only Gandalf can defeat it. They get to the bridge and the wizard faces it. In the most epic moments of the film he takes it down but unfortunately he goes down with it. You feel the loss yourself at this moment, seeing everyone in pain. In the rest of the film they more awesome characters like Galadriel and lose some like Boromir. Another thing that I love about these movies is the fact that no one is obligated to follow Frodo to his destination. They do it for friendship, one of the most important values in these films alongside honor and loyalty. I'm reaching the limit of words here so to summarize everything, 10 out of 10! Amazing.