Directed with confidence and imagination by Peter Jackson - who was little known by the general movie going public at the time - it transcends it genre limitations; an accomplishment that can be laid squarely at the feet of screen writers Fran Walsh, Philipa Boyens and Jackson himself. The characters are given room to breath, time to make themselves known and plenty of opportunities to showcase their various strengths and weaknesses before the story actually gets underway. None of it seems in the least bit contrived however because they are not only illuminating who they are, but who their people are, their place in the world and their relationship to it. All this setup will work marvelously to underpin the events that follow.
Though I'm not going to waste time and words recounting details of the story in the most general terms it goes like this: the Dark Lord Sauron was defeated by an alliance of men and Elves thousands of years ago. The ring from which he drew his power passed to the human King Isuldur who defeated him. Isuldur was corrupted by the ring and ultimately lost it. It was found 2,500 years later by a Hobbit named Smeagol, who was turned into the gruesome creature Gollum by the ring. After having his life extended by the ring's power for 500 years Gollum lost it to the Hobbit Bilbo, who because of his purity of spirit, was able to carry it around in his pocket for decades largely unmoved by the ring's corrupting powers. All of this is told over the course of a seven minute or so prologue.
We then jump to the "present" where Sauron is recomposing himself (though it's never really made clear how he's able to do that) and seeking the ring in order to complete his return. He's sent out agents to scour the landscape looking for it. Bilbo has turned the ring over to Frodo at the Wizard Gandalf's request and gone off to write a book. Frodo then as heir to the ring also becomes heir to its fate and must travel across the known world to destroy it by depositing it into the lava flows of Mount Doom which lies in Sauron's back yard of Mordor. In order to complete his task eight others (Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, the humans Aragorn and Borimir as well as Gandalf the wizard and three other Hobbits; Merry, Pippin and Sam) join him in what is christened The Fellowship of the Ring and the film follows them through the first stages of their adventure.
It all sounds very Wizard of Oz-y and to a degree it is. What separates it from your standard fantasy fare however is the emphasis on character development, the creative facility of everyone involved and the lavish (though never intrusive) art direction and special effects. Special mention must also go to the unreal New Zealand landscape where much of the movie was shot as well as to Howard Shore's score which sets just the right tone throughout.
I was reluctant to see this movie when it first came out thinking there was no way anyone could do justice to the story, which takes place during an earth epoch that never was, tells the tale of imaginary creatures great and small and spans well over a decade but I was talked into it by a friend and by the time the prologue ended I was sold, 100%. The setup was so powerful in fact that it effectively blinded me to the films shortcomings, and there are several. Some, like the fact that the timeline is dramatically compressed and Frodo is way to young, were things that mostly bothered those who believed the books to be Holy Writ. Others, like Jackson's appalling disregard for continuity, were things that revealed themselves to me on repeated viewings after the glow of the spectacle had worn off sufficiently. Still, as a whole the film achieves magnificently its goal of establishing place and time, character and circumstance and, though it lacks a "proper" ending (being only one third of the overall tale after all) still manages to end on melancholy yet hopeful note that leaves you feeling both satisfied and wanting more.
In subsequent installments of the trilogy the Hobbits would become somewhat lost in the ever expanding landscape of creatures and events but in The Fellowship of the Ring they are right up front where they belong. Tolkien's tale is after all a story of ordinary men ("ordinary" and "men" being relative terms) being called upon to undertake extraordinary tasks and handling them with a courage and fortitude that often elude their high-born "betters". This first installment of the trilogy never forgets that and because of that it achieves a poignancy which allows it to take its place among the great cinematic epics ever made.
