Movie Review-The Lord of the Rings-"The Fellowship of the Ring"

The Lord of the Rings is an epic film trilogy consisting of three fantasy adventure films based on the three-volume book of the same name by English author J. R. R. Tolkien.In the 1950s, J.R.R. Tolkien's novel "The Lord of the Rings" was published in three volumes. The first of the three volumes was called "The Fellowship of the Ring," and it was followed by "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King." Tolkien envisioned "The Lord of the Rings" as one long continuous story, but it was his publisher who insisted on spreading it over three separate volumes. The movies were directed by Peter Jackson and distributed by New Line Cinema. Considered to be one of the biggest and most ambitious movie projects ever undertaken, with an overall budget of $285 million, the entire project took eight years, with the filming for all three films done simultaneously and entirely in Jackson's native New Zealand. "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" takes place in an alternate world called Middle-earth, where the talking inhabitants have lifestyles rather similar to those of Europeans during the Dark Ages. One such inhabitant is a gentle, pure-hearted soul named Frodo (Elijah Wood), who is a Hobbit, a peace-loving, human-like race whose members are roughly half the size of humans. Through a series of events, Frodo happens to come into possession of a magic ring that imparts great power to anyone who slips it on his finger. But the good wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) realizes that Frodo has the one-of-akind Ring of Power, which inevitably corrupts its wearer. Furthermore, if the Ring is not destroyed in the fires of a mountain deep inside the territory called Mordor, the entire world will fall under the domination of an evil sorcerer, resulting in terrible suffering. Evil forces called Ringwraiths are already trying to obtain the ring when Frodo travels to a nearby town, where he is fortunate to encounter a brave man named Strider (Viggo Mortensen). Soon Frodo, Gandalf, Strider, and six others form a Fellowship and embark on a quest to destroy the Ring. During their quest, the Fellowship becomes embroiled in a series of perilous situations, including fighting fierce creatures, such as an army of Orcs, a cave troll, and a Balrog. These encounters take their toll, and two of the members of the Fellowship end up dead or missing, two are captured by evil forces, and the remaining five are split into two groups. As the movie comes to an end, the goal of the Fellowship's quest still seems far away, and Frodo, accompanied by only a single Hobbit friend, walks toward Mordor with the

Ring. I found "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" to be dazzlingly cinematic and intellectually engaging. Stunning location shooting and terrific special effects bring Tolkien's novel to vivid life on the screen. Because of the density of the material, I enjoyed this movie even better on DVD than in the theater.