December 3, 2013 (VOD Platforms)
Director: Ron Newcomb
MPAA Rating: NR
Review: 2.5/10
Only those who have seen Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy – and especially the first of the series, The Fellowship of the Ring – will have the slightest clue as to what is happening in this teenage homage to J. R. R. Tolkien’s story and Jackson’s filming of it. I can admire the filmmakers’ vision to recreate the saga, but Rise of the Fellowship’s execution is sorely wanting. It is downright silly and beyond trite in its presentation of four friends who find themselves on an adventure – a trip to a gaming competition in Orlando, Florida. Many of the scenes are almost shot-for-shot replicas of scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring. If you are going to do this, I think the best way is to do so satirically such as the infamous episode of “South Park” that involved a “fellowship” charged with returning a certain pornographic tape back to a video store. Rise of the Fellowship does not fully pull the parody trigger and so its sincerity is seen as more embarrassment than as well-made homage to a great literary work and cinematic achievement.
The story revolves around four geeky friends: Randall (Justin Moe), Squirrelly (Jayme Bell), Nate (Cole Matson), and Stacey (Emma Earnest). They play a version of an online game similar to the Lord of the Rings video game (or some other World of Warcraft knock-off). They want to enter a contest at a local arcade, but four other gamers – inexplicably all jocks, presumably to play off the other four’s geek status – ensure that Randall does not play by getting him expelled from school after the jock ringleader plants marijuana in his locker. Someone gives Randall a video capture of the ringleader planting the drugs in his locker. Randall puts this around his neck on a flash drive and it becomes like the famous ring – it is his “precious” as it holds the key to the bad guy’s undoing and Randall’s salvation. All of this is so absurd and stretches incredulity so that it was not even worth investing in. Given that this is how the film starts, I checked out early and nothing in the rest of the film could ever bring me back into its good graces.
The four friends steal a car and head toward Orlando for the competition. Along the way, they have several experiences that are taken from the first Lord of the Rings movie. For example, unbeknownst to them, there is a Gollum-type kid hitching a ride in the car’s trunk. Also, there is a mysterious motorcyclist who is following them. Is he one of the dark riders of the evil Sauron from Tolkien’s work? Or does he represent the good “ranger” who has appeared in the game before to help the four when they struggled against their online opponents? I will not give the answer away as it would actually constitute a “spoiler.” When their car breaks down, they find themselves taken in by a group that seems to exist in a commune and these people obviously represent the Elves who assist the Hobbits. There are numerous other similarities to the Lord of the Rings films that will be lost on anyone who is not familiar with Jackson’s work.
The film purports to be about geeks and gamers who become heroes. But the script, direction, performances, and overall production are great distractions from what might have been an interesting “David vs. Goliath” story set in a contemporary world but with Tolkien touches. Of course, the film has the see-it-coming-from-a-mile-away ending when the geeks win the tournament after gaining entry through a circuitous set of events in which the four friends are helped by powerful entities in the gaming world (just like the Hobbits are helped in the Jackson films). Although I liked the underlying concept, it ended up being a generally disappointing effort by all involved.
Trailer looks good, your review doesn’t back that up though? It looks full of action and adventure….
I hadn’t seen the trailer before reviewing the film, but I can attest that there’s really little action or adventure in the movie itself. I would imagine much of that is budgetary, but it’s also the way the story is told. The way in which the “fellowship’s” journey unfolds and particularly the way it comes to a close is just too prosaic to capture one’s imagination.