The critics' verdicts are rolling in on The Lord of the Rings. ANDREW LAXON takes some samplings.
After three years of hype, part one of the biggest project in film history is finally on the screen.
New Zealand audiences will have to wait one more week to see The Fellowship of the Ring, the first instalment of the $658 million trilogy filmed here by local director Peter Jackson.
But reviews are starting to flood in after the world premiere in London this week and screenings for selected US critics.
The reaction so far has been dominated by a mix of outright raves and more qualified praise. Most reviewers say Jackson has created a powerful, often frightening film which treats J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle Earth with great respect but shows the director's own distinctive style.
The consensus is that even the most devoted fans should find little to quibble about. Some critics dare to suggest that Jackson has actually improved on Tolkien's sometimes-wooden characterisation and storytelling style.
Several warn, however, that the average moviegoer could find all this high-minded seriousness tough going. Many thought the film was at its best in its depiction of evil and in the later action scenes - computer-generated special effects are Jackson's specialty - and weakest at showing goodness, females and during its first hour.
British critics agreed that the film outclassed the UK-based Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The New Zealand scenery was mentioned in many reviews, but only in passing - to the possible disappointment of tourism officials but the relief of Jackson, who hopes New Zealanders will forget about location-spotting and allow themselves to be transported in their imaginations to Middle Earth.
Here are some highlights of the reviews so far.
The good
"These three hours are a landmark in cinema, an awesome feat of imagination and daring. Critics who gave five-star ratings to Chris Columbus' competent but uninspired Harry Potter movie are going to have to find 10 if they are to do justice to The Fellowship of the Ring. Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic is as near to perfection as makes no difference ... Even if you didn't care for the professor's books, you should still thrill to the movie if you have any feeling for myth, narrative, landscape or cinema." - Christopher Tookey, Daily Mail.
"The Fellowship of the Ring is thrilling - a great picture, a triumphant picture, a joyfully conceived work of cinema that ... 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 ... I may have never turned a page of Tolkien, but I know enchantment when I see it." (Rating: A) - Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly.
"Visually striking, thematically grave, and morally weighty, Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring is a miracle of a movie: a three-hour fantasy-action-adventure that not only faithfully captures the spirit of its respectable source material, the first in J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy of books, but also stands tall on its own merits as one of the most ambitious movies to have come out of Hollywood in a long time.
"Jacksons 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." - Emanuel Levy, screendaily (website of Screen International).
"Twenty-five years on people still speak of Star Wars in hushed tones. A quarter of a century from now they will do the same with The Lord of the Rings." (10/10) - Neil Roberts, the Sun.
The bad
"It was three hours - the first two bored me rigid. It got going in hour three. Full marks to the scenery and to the way that they've created this imaginary world. But it's for people who had imaginary friends when they were 13." - Phil Williams, BBC Five Live (sports-oriented radio station).
"There's a lot for the unbelievers to titter about. Christopher Lee, as the evil wizard Saruman, appears to patronise the same hair salon as Cher." - Mark Jagasia, Daily Express.
"Fantasy fans will enjoy The Fellowship of the Ring ... but most moviegoers will find it overly long and just too exhausting." - Christopher Null, filmcritic.com.
"The narrative becomes ... a bit wearisome at times, and ultimately arbitrary in the sense that one battle more or less with the Orcs, Ringwraiths or Uruk-Hai wouldn't have made much difference." - Todd McCarthy, Variety.
"Utterly, utterly uninvolving ... technically wonderful yes, but oh so monotonous." - Alexander Walker, Evening
Standard.
The dollar each way
"The Fellowship of the Ring is a great bog of a movie, a three-hour epic all by itself, pretentious to the hilt, ominous to a fault, faithful to both the texts plot and tone, and I should note, almost parenthetically, very good." (8/10) - Couper Samuelson, Jiminy Critic (US-based film review website).
The bizarre
"You cannot help feeling that Hitler would have adored this film, with its hideous Untermenschen, its homeland-loving Hobbits and its Aryan beauties." - Thomas Sutcliffe, Independent.
Judge for yourself
"The film's problem comes in cramming so much story into even three hours, and from the moment Liv Tyler's elf princess pops up, the pacing seems slightly off - skipping from one breathless chase scene to the next." - BBC Film.
" ... quite masterfully paced and one of those rewarding movies that seems to get better and better as it progresses." - David Hunter, Hollywood Reporter.
The stars
"Viggo Mortensen as mysterious warrior Aragorn [is] brooding, intense, and handy with a blade [and] the film's greatest strength - Han Solo to Wood's Luke Skywalker." - BBC Film.
"I need to start a new paragraph just for Ian McKellen. I have never, ever seen an actor or actress just INHABIT and simply BE a part as he does Gandalf. From the first second he raises his hat in the first closeup and we see his face, you know it's him." - Tolkien fan "Joe Mama", Ain't It Cool Movie Reviews website.
The director
"Jackson has given himself a mountain to climb in tackling Tolkien's obsessively multi-layered fantasy (intricate back-stories, made-up languages and all). On the whole he copes beautifully." - Xan Brooks, Guardian.
"Jackson does not binge on computer-generated images (for a binge-case, see Chris Columbus' Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone), he combines well-imagined sets and the primeval wilderness of his homeland, New Zealand, with just enough CGI to make the scenes work." - Jiminy Critic.
The New Zealand factor
"One thing I predict is that New Zealand as a tourist destination will be very popular because the scenery is fantastic. It's hard sometimes to tell where the computer helps out and where it's natural." - BBC breakfast news presenter Jeremy Bowen.
"The film is a potent advert for the New Zealand tourist board when it heads into the great outdoors." - Guardian.
"Our adventurers set out across countless picturesque vistas - but when these are left untweaked, they look strikingly like boring old New Zealand." -filmcritic.com.
The book
"So dedicated is Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings that it's easier pinpointing the bits of the book that didn't make it than the ones that did. Kindly Tom Bombadil failed to make it to the final cut, and nor did several minor elves at the court of Elrond, nor the occasional thug at the Prancing Pony inn. Aside from that, purists can relax. The inhabitants of Tolkien's fiendishly multi-layered world appear all present and correct." - Guardian.
"There are mistakes. Merry and Pippin cook tomatoes, and Tolkien had taken care when revising The Hobbit in 1966 to remove mention of tomatoes - an alien, New World fruit." - Tolkien fan Christopher Howse, Daily Telegraph.
"Thankfully, much of the laborious elfin poetry has taken a hike ... The relationship between the elf princess Arwen (Liv Tyler) and the mortal Aragorn (a brilliant performance from Viggo Mortensen) is padded out ... Their quickie kiss on a bridge - not in the book, and the cause of consternation among the Tolkien Internet nerds - seems entirely appropriate." - Alex O'Connell, the Times.
"To many, J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure The Lord of the Rings is the greatest achievement in the history of fantasy writing. For plenty of others, it's perhaps the greatest story ever told.
As a reader who happens to agree with the latter statement, it's difficult to explain the mixture of emotions that swirled through my head as I sat waiting for The Fellowship of the Ring to begin ...
"With scepticism and optimism entangled in battle in my head, the lights dimmed. The film began. And nearly three hours later, I was stunned. Director Peter Jackson had chopped out a couple of memorable characters (blasphemy!) and expanded the role of an elf named Arwen (Liv Tyler) - apparently to present female audience members with a character they can more easily identify with. Yet, somehow, the changes worked.
Despite a number of divergences from the original tale, Jackson and the cast and crew managed to capture the soul of Tolkien's Middle Earth. And that's saying a lot ... I was actually brought to tears at one point of the film and left quite moved." - Mark Watt, Hear/Say (American college music magazine).
The competition: Frodo v Harry
"Sorry, Harry, but I've just seen a movie that runs Rings around you ... Harry Potter was, without doubt, a great kids' movie but The Lord of the Rings makes it look like an episode of Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. - the Sun.
Washington Post: The mindset should be - less fuss, more fun with company.