#50 Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

So, this is it.  The one movie made in this century that's on AFI's list. To be clear: No other movie made from 2000-2006 is better than the first Lord of the Rings movie, according to the AFI voters.
Well I disagree. Working off of AFI's list of the 400 nominated films http://www.afi.com/Docs/100Years/Movies_ballot_06.pdf
and limiting myself to movies made only in this century (including the year 2000 and don't start in on that "no year zero" shit, nerdlinger), I can come up with some movies that deserve the spot just a little bit more:

1. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2003)
3. Lost in Translation (2003)
4. Memento (2001)
5. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
6. Moulin Rogue (2001)
7. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
8. Spiderman 2 (2004)

Both Magnolia and The Truman Show were criminally left off the nomination list entirely. In fact, looking at that whole nominee list is pretty depressing, so many great movies pushed aside for Duck Soup and Swingtime and Easy Rider.  Ugh. How do I become a voter?  I gotta get Rushmore and Stand By Me and American Beauty and Fargo and The Big Lebowski and Election and Kill Bill and The Breakfast Club and Children of Men and Wonder Boys and everything by Charlie Kaufman and so many more in there.

Anyway, onto some Hobbit crap.

Plot summary (with spoilers): In the mystic land of Middle-Earth, the evil Lord Sauron has a magic ring that he uses in a fight against the humans and elves, but then the Prince Human guy slices off his hand that's wearing the ring and renders him powerless. (I would've tied a string around the ring and my waist on the other end, just to be safe). The Prince then becomes evil after refusing to throw the ring into the Magic Volcano of Doom and is super powerful for awhile until he is killed in a fight and the ring gets lost in the River of Lost Trinkets for two thousand years until Andy Serkis finds it.  He has it for 500 years and then somehow loses it and Bilbo Baggins the Hobbit finds it next.
Then Dumbledore Kenobi Gandalf goes to the Hobbit village to hang out with his Hobbit friends and have a party and he learns Bilbo has the ring. He freaks out and says it must be destroyed, but he doesn't want to touch it so he gives it to Bilbo's nephew Frodo. He tells Frodo to destroy it in the Magic Volcano of Doom, and unbeknownst to them, Frodo's lover Rudy is spying on them. So they both go on the adventure together. Meanwhile, Gandalf talks to his friend, another bearded old dude named Saruman, but his friend turns out to be a bad guy and takes him prisoner.
Frodo and Rudy hook up with their two other Hobbit friends, Charlie and The Other One. Then they're playing in the Grassy Field of Impending Danger and Sauron's men attack them. They run and barely get away. Then they meet up with Aragon, a studly prince guy, at a bar, but then the bad monster guys attack again and they run again. Frodo puts on the ring and uses it to disappear, but one of the monster guys still stabs him. Aragon fights the monsters off and then they go the Healing Elvish Sanctuary where a pretty girl elf heals Frodo. After some time, he's fully recovered, and his boyfriend Rudy just wants to go back home to Hobbitland, and Frodo agrees. But then Aragon convenes a meeting with all the dwarfs and elves in the area and they talk about how the ring must be destroyed and their lust for power makes them argue over who should hold it, and finally Frodo says he'll do it because can't we all just get along?  So his loyal BF Rudy also agrees to go, as do Charlie and The Other One. Gandalf, who escaped from Saruman, but won't say how, says he'll go with, as will Aragon, and a dwarf named Gimli, a normal dude and a clone of Aragon named Boromir, and a hot elf named Legolas. They will form "The Fellowship of the Ring", which is also the title.
Then they start on their adventure and CGI monsters chase them.  Then they run and get away. Then more CGI monsters chase them. Then they run and get away. Then more CGI monsters chase them, in the snow. Then they run and get away. In the snow.
Then they're running across a big bridge and a huge scary CGI monster chases them. Gandalf stops halfway across the bridge and waves his giant cane and says, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" and blows up the monster and makes him fall off the bridge. But as he does, the monster's Giant Red Hot Tongue of Death grabs Gandalf's ankle and pulls him off as well. As he falls, Gandalf says, "If you strike me down, I will be become more powerful than you caaannn pooossssibbblllllyyyy"--THUD.
Everyone's sad and they weep and rent their clothes and then some CGI monsters chase them and they run and get away.
Then Boromir is corrupted by the ring's siren song, and tries to steal it from Frodo. Frodo disappears. He decides that if he travels with other people, they will just keep trying to steal the ring, so he will continue on to the Magic Volcano of Doom alone. But then some CGI monsters attack. He tries to run away, and Charlie and The Other One act as interference, distracting the monsters. The monsters grab them and carry them away for some reason.  Then some other monsters in a different part of the forest all shoot Boromir with like, twenty five arrows. Then Aragon and the elf and dwarf kill the monsters as Boromir dies. So Frodo gets on a dinky rowboat and rows away and his legally married life partner Rudy sees him from the shore and jumps in to follow, but he can't swim so he basically drowns until Frodo turns around and rescues him. They sail off  together, ready to face whatever new adventures await.
To be continued?  Nope.

Review: The summary is perhaps unnecessarily harsh and snarky, if only because I was so annoyed originally by what I saw as an over-the-top reaction to these movies. I saw this when it first came out, and it's not bad, not really, but it is essentially three hours of time-filling prologue filled with endless, redundant running away from shit. This is like when you were a kid, and you made up adventures with your friends that would invariably devolve into just running away from imaginary predators. This is that movie. And yes, the effects are great, and yes the story is somewhat intriguing, but...it just seems so soulless. When I finished watching this the first time, I was happily dizzy with all the cool effects, and mildly interested in seeing what happens next, and I fully planned to watch the sequel. But for whatever reason I didn't get around to it, and certainly didn't make it a priority, and by the time the third one came out, I was actively anti-Hobbit. Before watching it today, I thought there would be perhaps a chance I would really love it this time, and would finally watch the last two movies. But without the theatre experience awing me with the effects, I was even less interested than I was the first time. I guess if I were at someone's house and they put in the DVD for the second one, I probably would watch it. I've heard they get better, anyway. But I seriously doubt that will happen. (Note to people whose homes I occasionally visit: This is neither a challenge nor a request). 


Stars: Two and a half out of five.

Next, "Intolerance" and then other round with Hitchcock, "Rear Window".