"Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of he Ring" is a story about a cute little fella named Frodo, who is a "hobbit." Frodo lives in a happy little hobbit village that appears to be modeled after an English village from Medieval times. Frodo inherits a ring that has great powers, but has the potential for some serious evil if it's used wrong.

If the ring falls into the hands of the Really Bad Men, they could use it to take over the world, so Frodo and his friends decide they must destroy the ring. The only way to do that is to go to the land of Mordar and toss it into a volcano, so off they go.

There are some unusual special effects in this movie. We know the ring is powerful because every time Frodo touches it, we see this weird thing on the screen that looks like a woman's privates or a cat's eye. And then Frodo looks tired.

Frodo and his friends encounter several obstacles on the way to Mordar. There are these bad men on big black horses that try to hurt Frodo and get the ring. In Tolkien's book, they were really scary. In the movie, they're not that scary. Frodo and his friends escape the bad men on big black horses.

Then, a bad man stabs Frodo with a poison sword. But a pretty elf happens on the scene and saves Frodo from the effects of the poison.

Soon thereafter, the bad men on big black horses almost catch Frodo again. But Frodo, his friends, and the pretty elf get to the far side of a river, and when the bad men on big black horses try to cross the river, the pretty elf makes the river into a big rapids, and the bad men on big black horses get washed away.

Later, Frodo and friends wind up in a blizzard on a mountain, but it's apparently not that cold, because you can't see their breath when they talk. They don't freeze to death because they realize there are passage ways through the mountain, so they don't have to go over it. They go through it instead.

There are also wizards in "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of he Ring." They have long beards and are old. There is a good wizard, and a bad wizard who used to be a good wizard. The bad wizard tries to get the good wizard to join the bad men, so they can share in the power of the ring. But he refuses. So the good wizard and bad wizard fight. The bad wizard has powerful magic that can make the good wizard spin around on the floor, like break-dancing, but the good wizard ultimately escapes.

Frodo and his friends don't get to Mordar in this movie. This means those who made this movie can make more movies, which is too bad.

The best thing about "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings" is the computer-generated scenery and accompanying special effects. Some of the scenery really is quite beautiful. And the volcano in Mordar is scary, as is the "underworld" inhabited by the bad men when they're not out chasing Frodo.

The worst thing about the movie is that it is slow and boring. The characters are uninvolving, the dialog is mostly forced, the battle scenes are frighteningly redundant, and the music is uninspiring.

Ultimately, "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings" reminded me of "Scooby Doo," a cartoon I used to watch occasionally as a child, except that instead of '70s hair and Ghost Pirates, you have Medieval garb and bad men on big black horses.

There is an underlying mystical quality to everything that happens in the movie, but it doesn't help. I was surprised by how boring and unmoving "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings" was. I didn't like "Scooby Doo" that much either.

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This is my submission to Sleeper's Lean 'n Mean Write-off. To see all submissions, go to:

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Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12