The Fellowship of the Ring (1991) User Reviews

An absolute gem of "so bad it's good" movies

[barenfotze · 27 April 2021]

I have to admit, I am torn on this one: an honest rating for this production would be 2/10, but it's so incredibly bad it's amazing! I was crying and wheezing from laughter by the end of the second part. Sure, it's hard to get there, but by the end you wish there was more. Move aside, Peter Jackson, there's a new hero in town!

Literally everything about this movie is either pure nonsense or so incompetently done one is left speechless. Perhaps the heart was in the right place, but the execution (and the budget) couldn't have been poorer.

I won't go into details over the CGI (remember, it was before the "cool CGI era") or the plot, you have to see it for yourself. No words can describe what my eyes have suffered. The VFX were so amateurish they couldn't really film most of the 'epic' adventures so they had to invent hilarious 'go-arounds' or leave the job to the narrator who suddenly appears mid-scene and takes over, staring into your soul with his deep, black eyes...

The dialogues are an untapped meme material: "Gandalf's prophecy was true: winter came!" (NO WAY, Gandalf!!) I think I cried a couple of times. The editing is equally bad - so bad it looks intentional. For instance, the Fellowship would lament losing its member in battle despite the fact that he was present in the previous sequence! Wtf? Why?! I have so many questions. And most of them are probably about the horribly mismatched cast - who, incidentally, all have Tommy Wiseau's (over-)acting talents. Legolas is played by a woman, Galadriel is in her 50s, Aragorn looks barely 19 and fresh out of school, hobbits are a bunch of middle-aged alcoholic dudes and Elrond looks like a gym guy from Aberdeen. It couldn't have been more amiss had they tried!

Seriously, imagine LotR with Tommy Wiseau playing every part (including Galadriel), combine it with the VFX of 'Birdemic' and you'll get the picture. Oh, and Neil Breen probably wrote the script.

It's painful, it's horrible, it's FANTASTIC - if you're into 'so bad it's good' films. And if you expect to see Jackson-like quality here, NO. Run, you fools! It is but for the strong-willed.

8 poorly costumed dark riders out of 9.

(Oh, and did you know they only had 3 horses between them? Well, they did! Sorry Tolkien, that's the new canon now)

Was lost for years - and should have been forever!

[magic.hb · 1/10 · 11 April 2021]

Very hard to watch for different reasons. It doesn't withstand the comparison with any other LotR-production one usually knows. This quality would easily be reached and even topped by amateur filmmakers anywhere in the world. Horrible soft focus senselessly used in so many of its scenes and sound and especially the choice of music (the few tracks they repetetively play): Really bad! All in all it's a torture for the eyes and ears most of its nearly two hours length!

The costume design is less fitting than it is in every Eastern European fairytale movie of any year of production I ever watched. And it seems they only had that one snowy afternoon when they lent a few horses from a farmer nearby to film all their outdoor scenes at once.

I suppose most of the actors being stage actors and not that bad at all, but each possibly promising approach lying in this is ruined by the very poor technical and other execution. Finally the only interesting thing with it is to have a look with a LotR-fan's eye how exactly they did interpret things and transpose them to their version. But that nowhere near makes it a worthwhile movie experience.

A Future Cult Classic?

[OceanDruid · 10/10 · 7 April 2021]

A snapshot of late Soviet-era television, it's limitations and deprivations. Beneath the theatrical sensibilities and sometimes kitsch design, there is a genuine commitment to the drama of Frodo's journey. First press commentaries have dwelt on the obvious low production values, but the cast are clearly determined to serve their characters well. Fittingly, it's not a million miles from some amateur fantasy productions of early YouTube, though the acting style is of a bygone age.

It is refreshing at least to see a Russian interpretation of familiar figures and tropes: Frodo is an ageing roué, Gandalf is younger and less humorous, Aragorn is surprisingly youthful, while Elrond and Saruman seem to have switched places. Legolas has transitioned. Gimli is a macabre gnome. Galadriel has a dance troupe. The orcs are either human or crocodilian. Bombadil and Goldberry (yes, they made the cut!) are wonderfully cheery. Everyone else is dour, stern or sad. Brilliant! Not forgetting the Lord of the Rings himself: Sauron looks like he's in for a contact-lens fitting.

Marvel at the Three-out-of-Nine Riders, Circus-of-the Macabre gender-bending barrow-wight (yes, he/she made the cut too!) and off-screen Gandalf-vs-the-Balrog confrontation. The overall look of the production is 1970s amateur Shakespeare with filmed inserts in the nearest country lane (snow-covered, though in the book it's summer). Special effects mostly comprise heavy use of superimposition techniques familiar to viewers of Seventies and Eighties Doctor Who and the like.

Being familiar with the plot and able to pick out proper names and a few key words, I was able to follow the dialogue without speaking Russian or having subtitles. The production is skewed towards the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring and some of the monologues are overlong. The narrator, while exuding Essence of Jackanory, adds little and almost looks like an insert from the present.

Overall, it's the commitment of all involved that shines through. I await the memes to come. Rated 10/10 for curiosity value.

and it's free

[agof · 6/10 · 19 January 2022]

So it is a public broadcast television children's time slot fairy tale television play. And just like it become in the west - it's not live, and neither is it play. The crew have extensive experience of adapting other fairy tales for their PBS TV series and they know their craft. Even in this 9-hours-long production in a span of one week with no budget being a side hustle, there are framing, shot composition, dramatic close-ups and cinematic angles. This is beyond of amateur production, it has an artistic vision and deliberate adaptation choices. Even with the lack of time or any polish, the visual effects, costumes and sets were still unreachable for backyard filmmakers of the time. They could use anything they could find during the off-hours of the studio. The Soviet Union was always behind the curve technologically and pop-culturally didn't catch up until the 00s.

It is a fairy tale, like Hobbit book and especially Hobbit 1985, so there is an on-screen narrator character. It's more interested in whimsy and magical setting than in sexy elves fantasy for nerds or an anglo-saxon attempt at an iron dream. And while there is no direct relation, under the soviet regime in the system of the state-owned PBS TV you can feasible to consider this a sequel to the aforementioned Hobbit adaptation. It was made in the same studios and from the same production company.

So it opens by vocalizing the rings-counting epigraph as a song.

Bilbo introduces Frodo as a barely adult hobbit of 33 so the team took that notion to heart. He starts very childish, goofy and scatterbrain and has an ark transforming into a heroic and thoroughly fed up hobbit. Tom Bombadil is not just a meme and a merry fellow. It's not only about bright blue being his jacket and his boots being yellow. That section is the best part of the whole first book. It starts with a very strong sequence in creepy woods. Then it's a confusing encounter with something way beyond their small life in the Shire and even all the trade partners and neighbours. It goes into another fever sequence of them being dragged into underlife, culminating in Tom's display of absolute raw power and loot acquisition. That plot is so strong even this production with a budget of 2 ration stamps for bread, that will definitely arrive soon, you just need to believe, manages to capture and portray. These sequences are made creepy, nightmarish and art-housy, this ghost is played by a female and dubbed with a coarse male voice. Even with all explanations and declarations for the pre-schooler audience it still works. Tom is pretty good too. Jackson left all the Anglo-Saxon retcon backstory legend foundations for their dominion over the empire intact but removed the best part just because it is a fairy tale.

This Sauron has already gone mad with power. The Boromir is really solid in his obsession. And there is no Barlog, Gandalf fell being surrounded by orcs. They already did the giant eagle, could've dressed up a dude in red and make him wear pointy horns as well. During the last scenes, Frodo breaks an apple in two with bare hands on the screen. That's a thing more people should be aware of. I can't break every apple, but that's a cool party trick to know about.

The lack of budget means that both Gollums are played by humans. Before Tolkien decided to add the backstory and retconned him to not have two giant glowing in the dark eyes. One of the most popular depictions of him in our region was a nosey monster with saucer-size eyes. I don't remember that in our other children's time-slot TV shows, but here the characters often deliver their lines talking directly into the camera, facing the audience. Like some kind of Dora the Explorer. All the dramatic scenes dip deeper into the arthouse and often use noire or red lighting. The hobbits have mullets and hairy paws. And there are real horsies!

With how fast and amateur is chromakeying here, the baffling part is that Star Trek or even the King Kong remake are not that better, despite not even sharing the same universe of budgets.

The OST is interesting too, there are funky disco tunes, folk-rock, art-house vocalizations and contemporary future-electric like Vangelis.

The director was spreading rumours that she is thinking to make two more and if that happens that would be an absolute power move. That would be a win for the whole of humanity if she keeps her artistic choices and ultra-slim budget. That's actually probable if she just do it, especially with the modern tech of free to play means of production, where all you need is freeware open-source soft and a smartphone's camera.

These days with modern technology even you can probably make a movie better than this with your friends using the things you already have.

But ya didn't.

A for Effort

[palettaarianna · 10/10 · 17 March 2024]

A charming feat in doing the darn best with what you were given. The production may look fake but the acting sure wasn't. Couldn't look away. Definitely a memorable and hilarious find. I love movies and plays that really remind you where the stage and film all started from. The wigs, the costumes... the music that would practically cue the audience how to react...it's no different than a classic YouTube film production someone did in their yard, so you either love it or you don't, if that makes sense , how every great meme starts. I haven't got a clue how to reach this review to six hundred characters.