DUBAI: There’s a lot riding on “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” for Amazon. Its reported $1 billion budget makes it by far the most expensive show in history, and it arrives just a couple of weeks after another eagerly awaited big-budget fantasy show, HBO’s “House of the Dragon.” If it flops, it’s going to be hugely embarrassing and financially disastrous.
From the two episodes available to view so far, it seems that enormous budget has been put to good use. The show is jaw-droppingly gorgeous to look at. Do not stream on your phone or tablet — it deserves to be seen on the largest television you can access. It looks better than most movies. It’s truly spectacular.
But that’s only half the battle (maybe less), of course. For this ambitious adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal fantasy works to really succeed then the storyline — set thousands of years before the events of “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” and cobbled together from various Middle-earth-based writings — has to grip us, and the performances need to convince. Both succeed for the most part.
It’s likely neither fair nor wise to proclaim judgement on the story just yet — given the amount of heavy lifting necessary in the early episodes of a fantasy epic on this scale just to establish the world in which it is based, with its various races and characters: Elves (very long-lived, clever, enigmatic), humans (complicated, capricious, human), dwarves (stubborn, emotional), orcs (sadistic, bad), harfoots (proto-hobbits, simple, sweet, kind) and so on. There’s exposition a-plenty and a lot of jumping around Middle-earth.
Its reported $1 billion budget makes it by far the most expensive show in history. (Supplied)
Tolkien’s tales aren’t big on nuance. The story is a simple one — Evil (in the form of Sauron, the right hand of the Dark Lord Morgoth) versus Good (pretty much all the races mentioned, with some individual exceptions, except the Orcs). But the sheer scope of this show means it takes a while to lay all that out.
A lack of nuance can be tough on actors, but the large ensemble cast handle it well, showing the necessary commitment to enable viewers to immerse themselves in the showrunners’ world.
If you enjoyed Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, then the early signs are that you’ll enjoy this series. There’s a long way to go, but there’s also enough here to suggest that “The Rings of Power” will make it a worthwhile journey.