An average movie

Way before the The Lord of the Rings trilogy directed by Peter Jackson reached some massive success, there was another adaptation of these books, an animated flick directed by Ralph BakshiI. Bakshi is a rather controversial director with a rather notorious reputation in the animation world as he created some adult-oriented flicks like ‘Fritz the Cat’ which was pretty successful when it was released. Anyway, at some point, Ralph Bakshi decided to develop some fantasy features and this flick was definitely his most ambitious project. Indeed, at the time, most people thought that Tolkien’s epic trilogy was impossible to adapt and it was quite an hazardous production. Indeed, at first, it was agreed it would be a series of three films, which was later reduced down to two but the sequel would never be made, even though this first installment was actually a financial success. The main issue when you watch it nowadays is that we have been used to watch Peter Jackson’s trilogy and if you compare those two productions, this animated production is not really amazing. Still, you have to be fair and keep in mind that it was made almost 25 years ago and that Bakshi didn’t have the same budget or production team behind him. Eventually, even though the whole thing is rather flawed, it remains an intriguing animated flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

6/10