If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Excellent but underrated film

best movie i've ever seen.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I believe in America the meaning of the English phrase 'pound for pound' translates. It basically means how good something is for how much it is, the term was coined for boxers, whom may have not been the biggest, may have been 'pound for pound' better than their adversaries. I think this is what you have here. The two main criticisms for this film is the Directing style, and lack of plot. In response to this, there are two points: firstly it is my belief that the film was intended to be in the time of the lord of the rings, and was made to show a chunk of the books that was left out. This chunk out of the many left out was more than likely chosen as it was cheap to do, and fairly simple. One cannot argue that there is no plot, because frankly, the plot is in the films as a whole, this is a very very small section of them, and you cannot judge it in isolation.Secondly, the directing style? This is obvious, It was shot the same way to avoid people attempting to choose which method is better, and because frankly, the Lord of the Rings did not have a huge budget itself for the size of the operation and Peter Jackson has some shiny Golden Figurines in his Cabinet to the contrary of what some peoples opinions are.I think this is a very very good film for what it is, its made considerably better than most television shows, the acting is good, the feel is very Lord of the Rings, and I think Tolkien himself would be proud the way that amateurs are giving life to his work very accurate to his writings.And for the less learned, the film had a budget of £3000, which is just under $5000.

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.

Made by fans for fans - an excellent chapter to slot in the film. Considering the all round high quality, acting, cinematography and special effects there is no way that it could be done for one ten thousandth of the reported $4000 cost ordinarily. I do hope they do more - and that the industry considers the idea of including enthusiastic fans in future 'professional' productions (not that this one isn't, but it is non-profit so non professional only in that sense). The industry desperately needs to reduce costs - this approach can do it with no loss of quality and could revive the whole sector. Maybe they could do the raising of the shire next to conclude the film the way it should have been.

A team of Tolkein fans, with an estimated budget of $3,000, have produced their own addition to Peter Jackson's film series. For such a small budget, it's impressive how close they come at times to reproducing Jackson's big-budget style.The movie takes its inspiration from one of the many appendices to the original novel, events that are hinted at in the first movie. The wizard Gandalf goes to Aragorn with a crucial mission: find Gollum, who knows the location of the One Ring, before Sauron's forces do. Success will allow for more time to plan, failure will result in a forced hand for our heroes, requiring that the ring be moved, with Frodo and the others put in imminent peril. Those who have seen Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring will know how this movie ends, but then that manages to add some more tense elements to the story. If you had some favorite technical element from the movie trilogy, writer/director/producer Chris Bouchard has likely re-created it here on a fraction of the budget. No less than a half- dozen cinematographers were used to evoke the atmosphere and rich, somber colors that helped distinguish the first movie. The score by Adam Langston and Andrew Skrabutenas is less conspicuous and "epic" than the Oscar-winning strings of Howard Shore, but that's perhaps fitting for this small, more personal movie. Gollum is envisioned with creativity, the filmmakers confining him to a burlap sack for most of the movie, yet whoever plays him in the sack, combined with Gareth's Borough's keen impression of Andy Serkis, are a worthy low-budget substitute for Jackson's extensive motion-capture. The appearance of a full-CGI Gollum addressing the camera at the very end was sufficient payoff for me. The acting styles of Adrian Webster and Patrick O'Connor as Aragorn and Gandalf are both quite interesting, surely both were cast in part for their resemblances to Viggo Mortensen and Ian McKellen respectively. Still, seeing them in their roles on the big screen is not a great stretch of the imagination. Fight choreography was one of the movie's strongest points, Bouchard has a very good eye not only for cat-and-mouse suspense, but complex sword fights. Too often with fan films, (or action/fantasy in general), fight scenes are handled poorly, leading to audience boredom. Far from it here, where the action drew me in a surprising amount. Bouchard and company have created something most impressive, and with a running time of 40 minutes and a price tag of $0, there's really no excuse to not see it. I can only hope that the people behind this movie will have their hard work here recognized, and maybe next time they'll make a movie they can actually profit from. This is likely the best fan film I've seen since Grayson in 2004.