Lester Bangs chimes in on FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS

Hey folks, Harry here. There is an interesting set of negative reviews that have come in, mainly sub-literate self-contradictory rambling types that don't make a lot of sense, or are trying to get someone's goat like the Agent Kushing review. Given I don't know these reviewers, they have no history and I feel so passionately that they are as wrong as wrong can be, I'm leaving them off the page, but Lester Bangs here is a bit different. I know where he's writing from, I know that he's generally pretty astute. So I post his review which is in direct reaction to Moriarty's. At the end of the review, I'll discuss my feelings and reactions about his review... OH and BEWARE OF SPOILERS!!!

I've always found Moriarity to be the sleekest and most dependable of the AICN reviewers. His evisceration of AI was by-far the smartest thing I read on the film; just the list of movies at the end of his LOTR review shows the wit and playfulness of his film sense. And yet: as a smart movie watcher (indeed, a very smart and informed film watcher, a film watcher who brings all those other movies he's seen with him into each new movie, so they're there with him filling up the back rows and whispering smart remarks in his ear) he especially should know what a slim, weedy viewing experience FOTR is.

(For clarity: I saw a screening in the east last week, in a roomful of reviewers, people who'd sat through all the painful crap of the last year and, you could tell, sincerely wanted a movie they could love, a non-Hollywood movie made on a Hollywood budget, a movie with some beauty and wonder. A movie they could take out their bad feelings about "Harry Potter" on.)

First, the casting feels wrong -- from Elijah Woods look of mysterious, pipsqueak discontent (he looks like someone peeling back the foil from the wrong meal on an airplane) to Viggo Mortenson's queerly distant line-readings. (Mortenson's seems like he's looking for someone to apologize to for not having shaved, like a businessman in a new city with missing luggage; his performance has jet-lag.) There's no splendor or joy in these actors, the way there is in Ian McKellan's Gandalf -- or in, say, the prison-camp people in Empire of the Sun. You could argue that the action of FOTR isn't joyful, but as in Empire (or The Matrix) you can be in tough spots and still feel -- and project -- a performer's joy. Think of the way Larry Fishburne's Morpheus or Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith lick up their lines. Think of Keanu's -- Keanu! -- big happy line: "I know Kung-fu." There's none of that in the Fellowship. The actors feel wrong and misplaced the way Liam Neeson felt wrong in TPM. Then there's the problem with editing/narrative. When Gandalf is rescued by the eagle, there should be the feel of peril, then the sight of a rescue, the surrender to the gamble (think of Luke and Leia swinging on that dental -floss rope in Episode IV), and finally the bliss of success. It's not there. Instead, the moment is rushed. Think of the dumb kick when Indiana Jones faces the sword-twirling guy in Raiders. Peril, fear, high stakes, release. The absolute best version of this, in Star Wars terms, is the explosion of the first Death Star: every moment of tension and release, every reminder of pace and stakes, is squeezed out of the sequence, until the sudden removal of the Death Star leaves you thrilled and limp. Instead, FOTR has the hasty, stubbed-toe, mis-edited feel of "Return of the Jedi" -- where things happened but the editing and the camera failed to linger, but just rushed and stumbled by, so we never got fully invested or had that sense of releif. The plot should be great: 9 people are marching across a shadowy, dangerous landscape to destroy a ring which -- in it's shiny, circular, innocence -- has in a very cool dense way suddenly become the most dangerous object in the universe. What plot could be more thrilling than that? It's like "Saving Private Ryan" with the Army boys escorting the atomic bomb. Yet the simple beauty of this plot is misplayed. You never feel the menace, or the human, brave power of 9 people saying, "Hey: Let's foot it straight into the teeth of peril." Instead, things just happen, and you never know the stakes. There's some tulmult, some confusion, and suddenly a goal and people celebrating. Imagine watching a World Cup Soccer match, and that's close to experience. Apparently, understandable press and mess of filming 3 movies at once, the connecting scenes weren't shot, the facial reaction shots weren't recorded. So the stakes aren't explained, so the payoffs aren't there. When Gandalf flies off on that eagle, you don't think, "Wow -- that was close" or "Yeah, if you try hard enough, there's always a way," or "My God -- deep down, I'd love to be fly on the back of a huge eagle." You just think "There's Gandalf, flying on an eagle." And that's it. The sequence needed only maybe 7 more seconds. But those are the seconds that count. Imagine if the Death Star blew up but you never saw: Vader almost getting Luke in his sights, the Death Star clearing the planet, Han Solo rescuing Luke, the Empire guys about to press the button, or the Rebel Alliance watching from the planet. That's how the payoffs feel here.

Then there's the simple problem of a director filming action who doesn't know how to construct action. Now, I actually really liked The Frighteners (Jackson's other Hollywood project); and I loved Heavenly Creatures, which really did have some moments of great fantasy and surprise. But none of those films suggest that Jackson would know how to shoot hand-to-hand or squad-on-squad conflict, and he doesn't. Action is very hard to do. Think of the gunfight that opens "Hannibal." Think of the one that closes "LA Confidential." These are scenes where you knew: How many adversaries there were in a room, where they were coming from, how you might have to escape, and how you might have to stop them. Think of the fights in Raiders or Last of the Mohicans. (Mohicans has the best sword, knife and ax work I ever saw; Mel Gibson ripped it off in The Patriot; but think of his fight stuff in Road Warrior.) Then think about the battle scenes in the Batman movies. They sucked. You never quite knew those things: the punches didn't seem to connect with anything. The fights had no rhythm. So Burton just went with close-ups of fists hammering stomachs and faces, just the way Jackson does in the fights in Moria and in the forest against the Urak-Hai. My God, think of the fight scenes in The Matrix: those are people that know how to shoot action, and love it. The action sequences here feel a lot like the Batman ones. The escapes, when they come, are ridiculously easy, rather than haresbreath and satisfying. You never know where the enemy are coming from or what their plan of attack might be. (When Mortenson faces down the Ring-Wraiths, it's impossibly easy and inexplicable.) And the close-up work actually is a little less satisfying -- Moriarity, forgive me, this is said with respect -- than the close-up work in Hercules, The Legendary Journies, or in Xena. The fight scenes are a tremedous drag; the Wizard one is cool, and will be particularly satisfying to people who liked the invisbile rape sequences in Hollow Man and Poltergiest. But otherwise, you actually find yourself hoping they'll be over. And in a sequence like the Moria staircase with the Balrog, everything falls apart. You have a stone staircase over a 10,000 foot drop, a staircase that's crumbling with every footfall. With a few extra seconds, this should be a sequence to make you weak in the stomach, the way Tom Cruise's climb up the mountain does at the opening of MI-2. Instead, Jackson rushes it, slips by the moments of power and wonder, as if he's running towards some chore he still has to do. Just for impatience, for running and rushing, it might as well be The Fellowship of the Ringing Telephone.

Small quibbles: Jackson doesn't know how to handle the problems of characters of different heights. Hobbits, dwarves, humans, elves. You'll get the impression that when the hobbits aren't facing you they're being played by children, and that when the dwarves are facing you that the actors are just standing on their knees. If you ever watched a baseball batter and a catcher at the plate and thought: "What a cool effect, that looks like a man and a dwarf," then this is the SFX movie for you. The movie also lacks the wit, spirt, and gentleness of Tolkein's book: No one is having a good time, ever, and that hurts our enjoyment. Even the Hobbits back at the shire, in their enjoyment, feel vaguely greasy, like people down the street having a party where they put their speakers in their windows. You'd really rather not know what it is they do for fun.

Past that, no one takes a relish in the largeness of their adventure. Look, in many ways, FOTR is closest in spirit to Saving Private Ryan. Nine people agree to shoulder an impossibly difficult assignemnt. Then it's a squad of guys walking. (Forget the beauty of the vision of Middle Earth and all that, because that's the baseline, and though it's there on screen to be appreciated you don't do the movie if you can't pull that stuff off; Return/Jedi had that stuff too.) But there are moments when those SPR guys feel and appreciate the epic-ness of their walk in the woods, even while they're hating the assignment. There are times they have fun together. There are people whose responses you care about. I'm not even asking for Han Solo. (Though to be frank, that might have been ice.) I'm asking for Tom Hanks; my God, I'm asking for Matt (don't blame me, blame Ben) Damon. The movie doesn't have any of that, and because all the LOTR films were all shot at once there won't be a way to correct the lack in parts two and three. I guarantee you will miss it, though. A movie where Gandalf the Grey is the most vulnerable, recognizable and human character is a film whose troubles are right there imprinted its movie DNA.

What's weird: I really waited a very long time for this movie (friends of friends worked on it and got word out to me), and really rooted for this movie, and really worked hard to love it throughout the first half. But by the second half I gave up. You will too: It's the Phantom Menace again, it's Return of the Jedi again, and it's also (and maybe especially) the Back to the Future sequels again. Maybe it's the Abyss again (the first version) too. Those were movies a lot of us wanted to love. Trailers we were thrilled by and lived for. And movies where we lied to ourselves about our responses even while we were having them, until the weight of the evidence wore us down. Enthusiasm isn't the same thing as effectiveness; you'll be a little angrier after having seen it, and having sat with the memory for a while, because of how much you wanted to love Lord of the Rings.There's some cool rigor in the way the towns and costumes are constructed. But basically it has the passion and success of Return of the Jedi: an understandably thrilled audience, an incredibly loyal fan base, the best intentions, and a film that crumbles in your mind's hands and makes you wish (more and more) that everything had been different, or just a couple of percentage points slower. I can't imagine anyone seeing it twice -- all the way through -- on purpose. I'm as wounded and slightly bitter as you'll be.

Lester Bangs

Harry here again. I can not express enough how much sorrow I feel for Lester here. To start with there is the wrong-mindedness of attempting to tell you what your experience with the film HONESTLY was. As if there is only one way to react. Now I've seen the film for a second time now, the momentary elation of OHMYGOD, I'm REALLY SEEING THIS!!!! Was gone. Upon second viewing I was there to watch it and see what else I could see.