THE WORLD OF MYSTERY

THE WORLD OF MYSTERY

Brooking no argument, history should quickly regard Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship Of The Ring as the first instalment of the best fantasy epic in motion picture history. This statement is worthy of investigation for several reasons.

Fellowship is indeed merely an opening salvo, and even after three hours in the dark you will likely exit the cinema ravenous with anticipation for the further two parts of the trilogy. Fellowship is also unabashedly rooted in the fantasy genre. Not to be confused with the techno-cool of good science fiction, nor even the cutesy charm of family fare like Harry Potter, the territory of Tolkien is clearly marked by goo and goblins and gobbledegook. Persons with an aversion to lines such as, “To the bridge of Khazad-dûm!” are as well to stay within the Shire-like comforts of home (their loss).

With those caveats in place, it bears repeating: fantasy does not come finer. There are electrifying moments — notably the computer-assisted swooping camera through Isengard as it transforms into a factory for evil — when Jackson’s flight of fancy approaches the sublime as the romantic poets would understand it: inspiring awe.

Leaving aside the thorny issue of Tolkien die-hards and their inevitable gripes — “What no Tom Bombadil?” — Jackson’s screenplay (written in collaboration with Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens) is both bolder and more judicious than Steven Kloves’ surprisingly timid retread of Harry Potter. In particular, rescuing the romance of Arwen and Aragorn from the footnotes and the elevation of Saruman to all-action bad guy actually has a corrective influence on Tolkien’s often oblique and female-sparse source material.

There are problems, though. The three-hour running time is high on incident and low on discernible form. After successive detours to Elf habitats Rivendell (the watery home of Elrond) and Lothlórien (the forest home of the Lady Galadriel), the uninitiated might well ask why these crazy Elf kids can’t just live together and spare us all this attenuated dramatic structure.

More importantly, the action clearly climaxes in the desperate flight from the Mines Of Moria, where the largely seamless SFX is showcased in the best possible light — total darkness — but the narrative demands a different, downbeat ending. Indeed, but for some fine emotional playing from Bean, Mortensen, Astin and Wood, the final fight might feel like a particularly brutal game of paintball in Bluebell Wood. But then, the real battles are yet to come...

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Their wounderful relations

Their wounderful relations

Will pre-match sexual hijinks give you the edge you need to win at tennis? Or will they distract you from mobilizing the killer instinct essential to victory? That's the earth-shattering question at the heart of "Wimbledon," a likable, formulaic sports movie that follows the miraculous comeback of an insecure 31-year-old British tennis pro, Peter Colt (Paul Bettany), whose career resurrects on the wings of love.

In the eight years since Peter placed 11th in the international tennis rankings, he has sunk to 119th. At Wimbledon, where he's playing his last professional matches before taking a job as a tennis instructor at a fancy club, he meets and falls in love with an American tennis pro, Lizzie Bradbury (Kirsten Dunst). A super-competitive athlete, on the fast track to the women's championship, Lizzie appears unstoppable until Paul enters her life. As her defenses start to crumble, her concentration falters and the trajectories of their careers unexpectedly reverse. Paul credits Lizzie with spurring his triumphs, while she bitterly blames him for her fall from grace.

"Wimbledon's" most refreshing idea is to present a sports hero who doesn't see himself primarily as an invincible fighting machine. Peter, who narrates the movie and whose jumbled interior thoughts are heard at tense moments, has a mind and a soul as well as a body. He is courtly, witty, sensitive and apologetic to a fault, but he is no smoothie.

Until she meets him, Lizzie is a snippy, wisecracking know-it-all pursuing the win-at-all-costs agenda of her pushy father, Dennis (Sam Neill). Dennis immediately perceives Peter as a threat and tries to keep him away from his daughter, but he won't be stopped. Lizzie is adept enough at compartmentalizing her life to have enjoyed a number of meaningless flings on the road without becoming distracted. She is all business when she first sleeps with Paul. When she loses control, she loses her temper.

Ms. Dunst projects the lithe physical grace of a born athlete, but she has a delicate line to tread to keep Lizzie sympathetic. Her skill at balancing Lizzie's smugness and vulnerability is a tricky feat she carries off by portraying her conflicting urges as the suppressed inner tug of war by someone too self-disciplined for melodrama. Until she cracks, the conflict registers mostly as subtle, telling changes in expression and body language.

Although the movie shows only fleeting glimpses of Lizzie in action, a good portion of Peter's screen time is spent sweating on the court. The tennis scenes, though credible, are pumped up and stretched out for suspense and embellished with dramatic glitches: an official's wrong call, a sudden downpour and several falls.

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