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n the eve of Bilbo Baggins' (Ian Holm) 111th birthday, the wizard Gandalf the Grey (McKellen) arrives in the Shire to check up on his old friend. It's been 60 years since the wizard and the hobbit had their adventure, during which Bilbo came into possession of a magic ring.
But when Bilbo uses the ring one last time—to vanish before astonished family and friends at his triumphant party—it raises Gandalf's suspicions. He persuades Bilbo to leave the ring behind for his nephew Frodo (Wood). It takes all of Bilbo's willpower to relinquish the ring before he sets off on his last walkabout.
Frodo puts the ring away and gives it no further heed. But after doing a little research, Gandalf returns in a panic. The ring, he tells Frodo, is the One Ring, the Ring of Power, forged in the fires of Mount Doom in Mordor by the Dark Lord Sauron to spread a shadow over all Middle-earth. Sauron, thought defeated 3,000 years earlier, is once again gathering strength, and will send out his nine Black Riders to scour the earth until the ring is his once more. "The ring has awakened," Gandalf intones. "It hears its master's call."
Frodo must flee his home, flee the Shire. In the company of his steadfast friend Sam (Astin) and two other hobbit companions, Frodo sets off to meet Gandalf in Bree, a town of men. But Gandalf doesn't show, betrayed by the wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee).
The Black Riders, the Nazgûl, close in. Frodo is rescued by a mysterious stranger, Strider (Mortensen), whom he later learns is Aragorn, last heir to the throne of Gondor. But Frodo is injured. Near death, he is taken by the elvish princess Arwen (Tyler) to Rivendell, seat of the elvish Council of Elrond (Hugo Weaving).
There, the council bickers over what must be done with the ring. It must be destroyed—returned to the fires of Mount Doom whence it came, Elrond says. Who will take it there? I will, Frodo says. Humbled by his quiet courage, the council approves. Frodo and the hobbits will take the ring, protected by Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir (Bean), the dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) and the elf archer Legolas (Orlando Bloom). They are the fellowship of the ring.
Jackson grabs the golden ring
After much hype, the first of director Jackson's three films adapted from Tolkien's fantasy masterpiece arrives full-blown in theaters in time for Christmas, opening up the book on the big screen at nearly three hours in length. The time whizzes by.
Jackson has accomplished what few thought possible—crafting a mesmerizing, purely cinematic interpretation of Tolkien's dense and sprawling narrative. Jackson and co-writers Walsh and Boyens have distilled the book down to its essence—the complex, three-dimensional characters; the most fully realized fantasy universe ever imagined; the pure quest from which virtually all subsequent fantasy tales have sprung. Unlike Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Jackson has not merely slavishly followed the book's structure; he has streamlined the narrative and rearranged things to preserve the rhythms of film, while remaining true to the spirit of the text.
Jackson, an avowed Tolkien fan, has kept things specific in the way Tolkien intended, surprisingly avoiding cliches of the genre at every turn. McKellen's Gandalf is no mere wizard, he is a very particular wizard—not just wise and avuncular, but also obtuse, crotchety, kind, fearful, frightening. Wood's Frodo, similarly, is not just an innocent, no mere Luke Skywalker. He is a young man of conflicting motivations, of courage and fear, bravado and naivete, honorable, melancholy, doubtful, hopeful. And the same for the rest of the cast, down to the smallest character: Each is fully realized, interacting with the others in the way of real people, evincing true feelings.
Jackson and his team of creative artists have also crafted potent images to make Tolkien's world tangible, aided in no small measure by the breathtaking beauty of Jackson's native New Zealand, where the film was shot. It's difficult to imagine a place more suited to impersonating Middle-earth, with its verdant forests, craggy mountain peaks and vistas to the horizons. Jackson employs at-times dizzying camera motion to capture the sweep of the epic tale. And the production design, taking its cues from Tolkien's own illustrators, is nonpareil, as dense and detailed as Tolkien's own imagination.
The film is highlighted by several sequences of thrilling action, often deftly intercut. Notable is the passage through the Mines of Moria and Gandalf's encounter with the fearsome Balrog. But these would mean little without the heart and soul of the characters, as embodied by the excellent cast and fully realized by Jackson and company.
Though the film pares down Tolkien's book admirably, it nevertheless feels chock-full of people, places and events. Yet Jackson et al. are able to keep things moving along with little confusion and with time enough for quiet moments where characters reveal themselves to each other and to us. It's a remarkable accomplishment—and a shame that we have to wait a year for the second installment. — Patrick
Also in this issue: Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and Kate & Leopold
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