Tags: The Lord of the Rings
I usually stay far away from trailers. I like to experience movies as cold as possible. But this is Peter Jackson’s
The Hobbit, and my fine principles have failed me. The film itself is still a year off … and I can’t wait that long to satisfy my curiosity.
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Word that
Eagle Eye co-writer Travis Adam Wright has been tapped to script a planned adaptation of James A. Owen’s fantasy series
The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica has kicked off a flurry of coverage on Owen’s series, which casts the Inklings—J. R. R. Tokien, C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams, as well as Owen Barfield and Hugo Dyson—as heroes of epic fantasy adventures weaving together Arthurian legend, Greek mythology and the writings of other British writers, not to mention the writers themselves—among other things.
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A+ |
**** |
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Teens & Up
It’s hard to overstate the soaring achievement
of Peter Jackson and company in
The Return of the King,
the third and final chapter of their historic adaptation of
The Lord of the Rings. To call it the grandest spectacle
ever filmed is no exaggeration; it may also be the most
satisfying third act of any film trilogy, completing what can now
be regarded as possibly the best realized cinematic trilogy of
all time.
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As Fritz Lang’s
Metropolis was the first
great science fiction film and Ford’s
Stagecoach was
perhaps the first great Western,
The Lord of the Rings is
the first great cinematic achievement of its kind - a genre that
might be described as epic Western mythopoeia, but is often
popularly (if imprecisely) called "fantasy" or "swords and
sorcery."
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C |
** |
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Kids & Up
The film hits the most critical plot points, but is clearly
aimed at the younger set, with little to interest even the most
avid adult Tolkien and/or animation buff. Unfortunately, this
style works even less well here than in
The Hobbit, which
really is a children’s story. Tolkien’s
Lord of the Rings
is a much more adult work, but Rankin-Bass essentially makes a
kid movie out of it. Even so, for kids too young for the Jackson
or even Bakshi versions, the Rankin-Bass cartoons might be just
the ticket.
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B |
*** |
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Kids & Up*
Notwithstanding this and other weaknesses, this Lord of the
Rings is in some respects quite impressive and remains worth
a look, especially for Tolkien fans, and perhaps younger viewers
not quite old enough for Peter Jackson’s more intense adaptation — though even the Bakshi is darker and more intense than most
cartoons. (Younger viewers might also be interested in the
animated Rankin-Bass versions of The
Hobbit and The
Return of the King.)
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“I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged,” said
Rhys-Davies, “and if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me.”
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A- |
***½ |
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Teens & Up
From the very first sequence of Peter Jackson’s
The Two Towers — a bravura opening that stunningly recalls and continues a central sequence from
The Fellowship of the Ring — we feel that we’re in good hands. It’s a promise the subsequent three hours deliver on imperfectly.
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J. R. R. Tolkien once described his epic
masterpiece
The Lord of the Rings as "a fundamentally
religious and Catholic work." Yet nowhere in its pages is there
any mention of religion, let alone of the Catholic Church,
Christ, or even God. Tolkien’s hobbits have no religious
practices or cult; of prayer, sacrifice, or corporate worship
there is no sign.
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Yet neither Baum nor even Mitchell ever quite generated the
level of intensely passionate fan devotion inspired by J. R. R.
Tolkien’s epic masterpiece The Lord of the Rings. This is
a fact not lost on New Zealand director Peter Jackson, whose
ambitious, unprecedented back-to-back three-film adaptation of
The Lord of the Rings launches this December with The
Fellowship of the Ring.
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A+ |
**** |
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Teens & Up
There can be no more fitting tribute to Peter Jackson’s
The Fellowship of the Ring than to apply to it the words with which C. S. Lewis acclaimed the original book when Tolkien first wrote it: “Here are beauties that pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a [film] that will break your heart.”
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