Hey folks, Harry here. Ok, so I've been hearing LORD OF THE RINGS detractors as saying that 'Girls' don't get it. Well, Lisa Schwarzbaum is not only a 'Girl', but she is also someone that has a history of not really being for Fantasy/Action types of movies. Not only that, but she has, according to her review never cracked a Tolkien book once... BUT listen to this paragraph....
"And I follow quickly by saying that The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is thrilling -- a great picture, a triumphant picture, a joyfully conceived work of cinema that (based on this first installment, with two more ready for release in the next two years) would appear to embrace Tolkien's classic with love and delight, and rewards both adepts and novices with the highest compliment of all: an intelligence and artistry as a movie independent of blind fidelity to the page. The Middle-earth of this ''Fellowship'' -- as directed by Peter Jackson with all the graceful inventiveness hoped for from the maker of ''Heavenly Creatures'' -- is vibrantly, intricately alive on its own terms. This is what magic the movies can conjure with an inspired fellowship in charge, and unlimited pots of gold." -- Lisa Schwarzbaum -- Entertainment Weekly
Now Click Here To Read The Rest Of Her RAVE!!!
Harry here... Why am I printing links to all these pro-reviews? Because I'm going mad insane waiting to see this fricking film. I'm currently 8 days away from seeing it at a Press Screening on the 13th here in Austin. I have been losing sleep thinking about this movie. Unfocused as hell... living in chatrooms talking about it... I've got the bug bad. I was originally told that the Austin Press Screening would be on the 4th of December... as in Yesterday.... As in that didn't happen due to PRINT AVAILABILITY because everywhere on the damn planet they are screening this film for every critic, critic society, awards society and various Kings and Queens around the world. My email box has become a pipe bomb of LOTR excitement. People writing me from all over. I'd say at least 7 times a day some bloody reporter is calling me up asking me about FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and on top of that I just got word that Ray Harryhausen and his wife will be at the World Premiere in London!!!! ME WANNA GO, FUCK MY BACK!!!! AAAAACK!!!!!
When I write about seeing this film, I write not as a critic but an obsessed fan. OBSESSED. Nearly every waking non-BNAT plotting hour spent contemplating the film. Must see it now. And these reviews... well they are like FOREPLAY... So lean back and enjoy...
Now here's what Emanuel Levy of the trade SCREEN DAILY had to say about the film...
"Jackson’s Ring cycle generates the kind of epic cinema excitement, encountered in the films of Abel Gance (Napoleon), Akira Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai, Ran), David Lean (Lawrence Of Arabia), Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey), and arguably last seen on the American screen in Coppola's Apocalypse Now; it certainly far surpasses the standards of popular epics like Braveheart or Gladiator, the Oscar-winners of 1995 and 2000, respectively. What the trilogy's first installment shares with all those seminal movies is not just expansive breadth, but complex and engaging characters, genuine movie magic via state-of-the-art effects, and, most important of all, a moral and emotional significance, which are terribly missing from other event movies such as Titanic, Star Wars, and Pearl Harbor."
Click here to read the rest of this review!!!
Finally we have Christopher Null of FilmCritic.Com who gave the films 3 and a half stars out of 5, but his review comes across as someone that seemed to not have much fun at all. It seems fairly snide. I'm not familiar with his reviews though...
"With two-thirds of the story to go, it's difficult to judge the film on its own, so I'll be gentle this time out. Suffice it to say that fantasy fans will enjoy The Fellowship of the Ring, but most moviegoers will find it overly long and just too exhausting. Jackson may have some tricks up his sleeve for the sequels, but it's going to be tough for him to improve things much with The Two Towers, when the plot slows down and the highlight of the story includes an anthropomorphic tree. I understand that making a movie out of a legion of people's favorite book means the opportunity for a director's interpretation is limited, but Jackson also needs to understand that for his trilogy to earn the title of epic it will require something more than simple length"
