Merry and Pippin were shocked to realize that Gimli's outfit is backless.

Please forgive any typos in this review; it’s hard to type when you’re JUMPING UP AND DOWN WITH PURE JOY!!!!

I just got home from seeing The Fellowship of the Ring, the first movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’m giddy. I’m ring-drunk. I’m deeply, deeply satisfied. It’s past midnight and I’m tired, but I have to get some of this down while I’m still feeling the way I’m feeling.

When I was a kid and I saw Star Wars for the first time and came out of the theater babbling about it and couldn’t stop for hours afterwards . . . that’s how I feel now. Except I’m an adult and I get to babble to you on the internet.

Is it possible to be in love with a movie? I want to send it flowers. I want to call it up and ask it for a second date. I want to plan a future together.

Okay. I’m sorry. It’s time for the actual review portion of the review to begin.

News flash: Batboy is actually an Orc! Someone alert the Weekly World News.

The setup: There’s this ring, see, the One Ring of power, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron in the fires of Mordor. The ring brings him great success in battle against the good peoples of Middle Earth. The thing with rings, though, is it’s very difficult to keep them on once someone has hacked off your finger, which is what happens to Sauron, and the ring is lost. Centuries later, the ring ends up in the possession of Frodo Baggins, a Hobbit. Hobbits are small people, and the least adventurous of all the races of Middle Earth. But it is now up to this unlikely hero to destroy the Ring, which can only be done by taking it back to Mordor and casting it into the fires in which it was forged.

And so the adventure begins.

First, as you can tell, it’s impossible for me to be objective about this movie. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is a trilogy of books that have been part of my life since childhood, something special I shared with my sister Anita, who read parts of them to me before I was old enough to delve into them for myself. (That same sister, by the way, flew to Minneapolis from Colorado just to see the movie with me. Okay, and to be home for Christmas too, but still.) I’ve read the books at least four times. On the way to the theater, Anita and I tried to stump each other with obscure bits of dialogue.

Middle Earth's number one boy band.

So what I’m saying is, I went to the movie with expectations. And hopes.

Which the filmmakers met or exceeded at every turn. I cannot imagine them making a better movie than the one I just saw.

What do they get right? Let’s begin where all filmmaking begins, with the script. Adapting a novel that runs to hundreds of pages into a manageable, cohesive, coherent film script is a daunting task, but screenwriters Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson (who also directed) do a masterful job. The narrative is condensed in some points, opened up in others and manages to remain true to the spirit and tone of the novel. Changes had to be made, characters left out or combined. I know there are purists out there who object to any tampering with the characters or storyline, but this is a filmic experience, folks, not a book and the story needs to be told differently. I had no problem with the expanded role of the Elvin princess Arwen, nor with most of the other alterations.

The one change I did object to had to do with how two of the other Hobbits, Merry and Pippin, were depicted. In the book, they are willing and purposeful participants in Frodo’s quest, loyal friends who make sacrifices to stand by him on his dark journey. In the movie, they more or less stumble into the adventure and just keep tagging along. I’ve always had a soft spot for these two characters and felt like they were trivialized a bit here. And yet, I can see how the time required to establish their storyline isn’t really necessary in the grand scheme of the movie.

"We have how many more weeks to shoot? You have got to be kidding me. "

Kudos also for the casting. Every character is portrayed by not only a good actor, but an actor who seems born to play that role. A few deserve special mention. Ian McKellen is astounding as Gandalf, the wise and compassionate wizard. The part calls for a commanding presence, a great range of emotion and a touch of madness and McKellen fills it perfectly. The look of sadness and resignation that passes across his face as Frodo volunteers to undertake his dangerous quest is heartbreaking, one of the finest moments I have ever seen on film. I was also mightily impressed with Sean Bean playing the flawed but noble warrior Boromir. Bean embodies a character who longs for greatness and sees the path to it in a choice that will ultimately destroy him. Billy Boyd’s expressive and eager face is perfect for the aforementioned Pippin. Finally, I thought Elijah Wood brought just the right note of reluctant, doomed courage to Frodo, a small, unassuming person who finds himself holding the fate of his world in his trembling hands.

"Get back! I've got a pointy thing and I'm not afraid to use it!"

The look of the film is nothing short of beautiful. It was shot in New Zealand, which looks exactly as I imagined Middle Earth would, with rolling green fields, majestic mountains, cascading waterfalls. The special effects are brilliant; an entire world has been created for this movie and it’s a world that feels lived in, frayed around the edges and ultimately real. I know I’m looking through the eyes of love, but I found this world entirely convincing in a way that Harry Potter or even Star Wars never could manage. I felt like I was there.

Peter Jackson’s imaginative directing takes all these instruments and combines them into a symphony. I loved the unabashed grandeur of his film, the sweeping camera shots, the visual flourishes. The reverence with which he treated the Ring is indicative of how strong his vision is. There is no shot of the Ring that is taken lightly. It glows with fiery writing, or pulses with power. We see characters through it, we watch anxiously as it fills the screen, reflecting the squabbling races of Middle Earth. A hand opens, revealing it to greedy eyes. It is always given its full significance.

The crack security team for this year's Renaissance Festival.

Oh, and the action scenes! The movie has all the chases and battles you’d expect from an epic tale of good versus evil and they’re energetically and suspensefully staged. My particular favorite was a desperate, hard-fought battle between two powerful wizards, fighting with all the magic at their disposal. This scene is glossed over in the book, but Jackson’s handling of it is dazzling.

Ultimately, I think, what makes this movie work is, well, great source material for one thing. But also it feels like a labor of love, an exercise in the sheer joy of filmmaking. I think the people behind this movie were passionate about it and that shows in every frame.

I am a moderately cynical person, but I find it impossible to indulge that side of myself tonight. Perhaps on further reflection I’ll find more flaws in the film, but right now I’m enjoying this feeling of childlike wonder. This is the movie I have been waiting for, not just for the two-plus years that I’ve spent following its progress, not even since the first time I read the books. It’s the movie I’ve been waiting for since I first discovered movies. At the end I wept, not over the fate of any character, but simply because it was over.

Gorilla Pants rating: 4 out of 4 bananas + 1, for an over-achieving 5 bananas!