I went to see Lord of the Rings last night on Simon’s recommendation. I’d been quite keen on the idea of it about eight months ago but once all the hyper-publicity got going it went a bit ‘just another Hollywood blockbuster’ in my eyes. I should maybe mention here that I’ve never read Lord of the Rings and the nearest I get to fantasy is Star Wars and the Narnia books, having as I do a horror of faeries and goblins and all that nonsense. However, I was drawn in really quickly and found myself totally believing it: because they’ve made the film in such a historical way it’s as easy to believe in as cavemen and dinosours [heh, dinosours, they’d be a new type of sour fizzy sweet in the shape of a dinosaur], dinosaurs and giant squid. They just managed to keep away from most of the cliches of fantasy stuff like magic potions and talking trees and instead focused on the characters who acted for the most part like humans, having no supernatural powers [except for the power of good etc.]. And though the story was basically a group of good people delivering an important item to a faraway place while hordes of bad people tried to kill them and take it, every new event still felt exciting as they travel through some of the most astounding locations imaginable. That’s the other strength of the film, that they mostly use real locations with the CGI effects used only to add spectacular and believable touches or to build the complex cities. There was a slight reliance on near death [every good character nearly dies about 12 times in the film] and knife edge thin pathways for thrills but it sure worked. The one thing that would have made the film better would have been to not have a ten minute intermission half way though. I’m sorry, but are they allowed to do this? I know it’s a long film but it totally broke my concentration and reminded me that it’s not real. I’d definitely recommend you go see it soon, not least because it won’t look even half as good on your little tv screen.

There’s also something to be said for walking home at night eating half a packet of LoveHearts so thanks to Orange Splifffish for those. Let’s hope your demo is better than your name but at least you have good taste in confectionary bribery.

Posted: 01|13|02 at 2:04 pm. Filed under: film and video.
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