Micitype Pretty Good

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

rgcustomer Here's a film worth skipping, even though it is a short. But nevertheless, the team shouldn't give up on future works.Technically, the film is a wonder, particularly given the tiny budget. The actors look the part, the costuming and makeup and props are impeccable, the cinematography and whatnot is good, and the music is acceptable.However, there are two major flaws in this film.First, the story has no heart. It's plodding and dull. There's no emotion to it. You don't care who gets Gollum. You don't care whether Gollum can put anyone in danger. You don't care who knows where the Ring is.Second, the film is clearly designed in the style of Jackson's trilogy, versus an independent vision, and yet the plot (even one scene that appears as if lifted intact from the Jackson films) is directly at odds with those films. In Jackson's films, Gollum is tortured in Mordor, and his words "Baggins! Shire!" are what lead the Ringwraiths there. In this film, that never happens. Instead, Elves and Gandalf are apparently the ones who torture Gollum. Despite this, Ringwraiths already seem to have a fairly good idea where the ring is anyway. It doesn't make a lot of sense.One minor flaw: the use of the sack is too obviously a way to avoid expensive animation.I'd like to see what this team could do with a good script, and tighter editing.

el_monty_BCN I'm sure I will going to get a lot of negative votes from the fans for this comment, but after reading so many glowing reviews I feel I need to tell my truth. It's true that the visuals of the film are pretty impressive (at times, not all the time) for a no-budget short, and that the makers have made a mighty good attempt at reproducing the atmosphere of Jackson's movies at a tiny fraction of the cost; also, there is a notably well choreographed fight scene of Strider against the orcs; but once you get past all the shiny packaging, it's impossible not to notice that the plot is not just thin, but practically non-existent. There are absolutely no surprises, and in 40 minutes it hardly manages to go beyond its one-line synopsis. All the film seems to do is its own little riff on some of the characters of Jackson's trilogy without adding anything new or meaningful. It certainly serves as a good calling card for the director, but it left me with a feeling of... nothingness.

Skippster This movie must be recommended to every Tolkien fan out there. But even people who don't consider themselves to be fans can be entertained for 40 minutes by this movie. Although it is said that the budget amounts to 3.000 pounds this film does not actually look like a low-budget flick. The work and preparation behind this movie (a "behind the scenes" is available somewhere) look almost professional. The dedication of the team absolutely outweighs a big budget. Some shots of the landscape are quite amazing because they seem like original film locations (yet, I think they're not, of course). The CGI looks quite good, too. All in all this little fan made piece of Tolkien's world impressed me deeply. These guys should really think about producing something from the Silmarillion. ;)

funkyfry This 39 minute fan film was put together by a bunch of very dedicated people. They seem to be people who are bigger fans of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films than they are of J.R.R. Tolkien's brilliant book "The Lord of the Rings", but that would hardly qualify them as unique. What they've done here with a reported $5,000 budget is pretty astounding. I wouldn't say that it's equal to Jackson's film, but pound for pound and dollar for dollar it's a very impressive achievement in fan films. Most fan films just easily shrug off the lower production values and turn the movie into a farce. This film takes itself seriously, which in some aspects weakens the film but in most cases strengthens it and lends it a credibility rarely seen in amateur fan film.The story roughly corresponds to the events taking place between "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" which are described in the Appendices to "LotR" and in the "Council of Elrond" chapter of the second book of "LotR", concerning the hunt and capture of Gollum by Aragorn. Concerned that Gollum may reveal the identity of Bilbo Baggins to the enemy, Gandalf the Grey charges Aragorn with hunting the creature down so that he can discover what he knows and what knowledge he has shared. The hunt takes him through the forests on the western edge of Mirkwood and involves several battles with the goblins charged with bringing Gollum back to Mordor.The casting for this film is very uneven, as you would likely guess since few of them would have been paid. The most important lead role of Aragorn is fortunately very well carried off by Adrian Webster. In some ways I prefer his Aragorn to Viggo Mortensen's more deliberately world-weary version. But his is the only really exceptional performance. Patrick O'Connor can't lend Gandalf any trace of Ian McKellan's majesty, Rita Ramnani's Arwen is the same cold fish as portrayed by barely-actress Liv Tyler (and seems to have even less reason to be in the movie), and the voicework by two actors for Gollum never rises above the level of basic imitation.Saddest of all, the way the film was directed is basically a transcription of Jackson's already repetitive style. Culling imitative music from sound libraries, the music department's main achievement is to betray the unoriginality of the original score itself. The battle scenes seem obligatory and are the area where the effects are at their least, well, effective. You can clearly see that the masks for the orcs in the second battle are recycled from the first.However, in a few areas the film is actually superior to Jackson's version of the later tales. That considering the budget is something to wonder at in and of itself. The main aspect that's improved is the locations. I like the fact that they filmed this in England, in the Epping Forest near Essex which very nearly matches what must have been Tolkien's own imagination of Middle Earth. There are a couple very nice scenes that build Gollum's threat in a way that Jackson never managed to do in the absence of "Hobbit" as a foundation stone, including one where Gollum snatches a fish from a farmer's window that's full of dire implications. For those fans of Jackson's "LotR" who have no familiarity at this point with "Hobbit", this fan film will serve to supply some more background on his nature and character. And since he's the most fascinating character by far that Tolkien ever created, this is also an accomplishment worthy of note in and of itself.The film cannot stand on its own, but it is a very nice treat for fans of Tolkien and fans of Jackson's films that are starved while waiting for the Hobbit film version. Considering that it was made available to one and all for free, there are hardly any grounds to complain. But being a bit of a purist, I can of course do so at great length and to the boredom of one and most. I think basically the big problem with this film is that it stayed true to Jackson instead of Tolkien. Jackson had to elide a lot of information from "Hobbit" and from the Appendices in order to make his version comprehensive. These film-makers felt the need to remain true to Jackson's version, in which these events are truly superfluous. In Tolkien, the whole reason that Gandalf wants to speak to Gollum (and in fact tortures him to obtain information) is because he's still trying to figure out if the ring found by Bilbo is the "One Ring" of Sauron. He needs to know how Gollum came to possess the Ring because it would help to confirm or deny the Ring's true identity. In this film however, he already knows that Frodo has the One Ring in the Shire, so tracking down Gollum is a pointless task except for the idea of preventing him from speaking to the enemy, which has apparently already happened since Gandalf waited so long. It makes Gandalf look like a right fool, as opposed to Tolkien's wise man who made the occasional error. If Gandalf had known that Frodo had the One Ring for certain, he would never have allowed the Ring to remain in the Shire for so long or for Frodo to be exposed to such danger. However, due to Jackson and his co-writers' need to elide certain details of Gandalf's activities around this time respective to Gollum and the Ring, these film-makers have followed his lead and provided us with missing pieces of a puzzle that had already been pasted hastily together without them.