Khraniteli

I have to admit, I am torn on this one: an honest rating for this production would be 2/10, but it's so incredibly bad it's amazing! I was crying and wheezing from laughter by the end of the second part. Sure, it's hard to get there, but by the end you wish there was more. Move aside, Peter Jackson, there's a new hero in town!

Literally everything about this movie is either pure nonsense or so incompetently done one is left speechless. Perhaps the heart was in the right place, but the execution (and the budget) couldn't have been poorer.

I won't go into details over the CGI (remember, it was before the "cool CGI era") or the plot, you have to see it for yourself. No words can describe what my eyes have suffered. The VFX were so amateurish they couldn't really film most of the 'epic' adventures so they had to invent hilarious 'go-arounds' or leave the job to the narrator who suddenly appears mid-scene and takes over, staring into your soul with his deep, black eyes...

The dialogues are an untapped meme material: "Gandalf's prophecy was true: winter came!" (NO WAY, Gandalf!!) I think I cried a couple of times. The editing is equally bad - so bad it looks intentional. For instance, the Fellowship would lament losing its member in battle despite the fact that he was present in the previous sequence! Wtf? Why?! I have so many questions. And most of them are probably about the horribly mismatched cast - who, incidentally, all have Tommy Wiseau's (over-)acting talents. Legolas is played by a woman, Galadriel is in her 50s, Aragorn looks barely 19 and fresh out of school, hobbits are a bunch of middle-aged alcoholic dudes and Elrond looks like a gym guy from Aberdeen. It couldn't have been more amiss had they tried!

Seriously, imagine LotR with Tommy Wiseau playing every part (including Galadriel), combine it with the VFX of 'Birdemic' and you'll get the picture. Oh, and Neil Breen probably wrote the script.

It's painful, it's horrible, it's FANTASTIC - if you're into 'so bad it's good' films. And if you expect to see Jackson-like quality here, NO. Run, you fools! It is but for the strong-willed.

8 poorly costumed dark riders out of 9.

(Oh, and did you know they only had 3 horses between them? Well, they did! Sorry Tolkien, that's the new canon now)

A charming feat in doing the darn best with what you were given. The production may look fake but the acting sure wasn't. Couldn't look away. Definitely a memorable and hilarious find. I love movies and plays that really remind you where the stage and film all started from. The wigs, the costumes... the music that would practically cue the audience how to react...it's no different than a classic YouTube film production someone did in their yard, so you either love it or you don't, if that makes sense , how every great meme starts. I haven't got a clue how to reach this review to six hundred characters.

Very hard to watch for different reasons. It doesn't withstand the comparison with any other LotR-production one usually knows. This quality would easily be reached and even topped by amateur filmmakers anywhere in the world. Horrible soft focus senselessly used in so many of its scenes and sound and especially the choice of music (the few tracks they repetetively play): Really bad! All in all it's a torture for the eyes and ears most of its nearly two hours length!

The costume design is less fitting than it is in every Eastern European fairytale movie of any year of production I ever watched. And it seems they only had that one snowy afternoon when they lent a few horses from a farmer nearby to film all their outdoor scenes at once.

I suppose most of the actors being stage actors and not that bad at all, but each possibly promising approach lying in this is ruined by the very poor technical and other execution. Finally the only interesting thing with it is to have a look with a LotR-fan's eye how exactly they did interpret things and transpose them to their version. But that nowhere near makes it a worthwhile movie experience.