Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power review: An epic that needs to go harder

Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Prime Video’s new series arrives this week with high expectations and a heavy workload. J.R.R. has to be satisfied with the series streaming. Tolkien’s beloved fantasy novels, but it also invites unavoidable comparisons to Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy — collectively one of the most critically and commercially successful big-screen adaptations ever.

This can’t have made life easy for showrunners J.D. Patrick McKay, Patrick Payne. How do you make a Lord of the Rings? You can show paradoxically that Tolkien (and Jackson, in a smaller degree) are true, while also breaking new ground. It’s a question The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s first two episodes aren’t really equipped to answer, since they ultimately come up short on both fronts.

That’s not to say that The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power doesn’t evoke Tolkien. There are many Tolkienesque plot beats throughout the first two episodes. Sinister, soul-corrupting McGuffins? Check. Forbidden interspecies love? Check. Check. Check. We’ve seen it all before, and frankly, seen it done better, too — especially the scenes involving the Harfoots — so why aren’t we diving into some other, unexplored corner of Middle-earth lore instead?

Payne, McKay and J.A. are the same. Bayona’s impressively cinematic vision of Middle-earth, which is clearly informed by the production design in Jackson’s films, itself inspired largely by legendary Tolkien artists John Howe and Alan Lee. CGI is also used in fight choreography, bravura cameras work and, unsurprisingly, the main theme. The Lord of the Rings Howard Shore, composer. It’s all terrific, but it’s all so familiar, too.

Image: Amazon Studios

Photo: Ben Rothstein/Amazon Studios

Fairness aside, Are Moments when The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power To good effect, the expanded Middle-earth mythos expands. The first episode’s scenes that depict the often-referenced, but rarely shown transcendent experience that it is possible to pass into the West have a poetic quality Tolkien would likely appreciate. Similarly, the trip to Khazad-dûm in the second episode unearths several new facets of the delightfully bonkers dwarf culture, even solving the mystery of how dwarves get their daily dose of vitamin D.

It’s just a shame that the visual poetry and willingness to take risks in moments such as these aren’t more prevalent in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s first two episodes. Payne and McKay mostly follow Tolkien’s playbook. The story is based largely on tried-and-true Middle-earth tropes like moody dungeon crawling and solemn council sessions. These are the ingredients that were expected to be included in the show, even though they are admittedly not what fans wanted. But they’re so conceptually safe rather than daring, and executionally pedestrian rather than poetic, that it’s hard for us to get too excited.

And while we’re on the subject of poetry, that’s certainly not a word you’d use to describe the show’s dialogue. The show’s evocative words and the evocative lines it uses seem very Middle-earth-ecentric. There’s talk of an evil that doesn’t sleep and metaphors revolving around boats and stones searching for the light that are broadly reminiscent of Tolkien’s own writing. Yet these lines lack the author’s distinctive rhythms, which — for all they put meat back on the menu in Two Towers — Jackson and screenwriters Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh largely captured.

This is the biggest problem. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power exposes how shallow its connection to Tolkien’s work can sometimes feel. Language was a big deal for Tolkien; he was an Oxford don who didn’t just study languages, he invented his own for fun. Middle-earth, in fact, is itself a language. Constructed on the use of made-up languages. So, the fact that so much of what’s said in The Rings of Power sounds clunky really undermines the show’s connection to the fictional world it’s so determined to be a part of.

Image: Amazon Studios

Image: Amazon Studios

Image: Amazon Studios

The other “tell” that The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power isn’t quite as keyed into Tolkien as it is modern TV are the various “mystery box”-style narrative devices. To be honest, these all feel alien to Middle-earth — especially the meteor man, and the Sauron sigil and sword. It’s not that Tolkien completely eschewed any form of mystery in his storytelling; as originally written, the Balrog’s arrival in The Fellowship of the Ring It was all about suspense and clues. But he didn’t trade in dangling unanswered plot points, preferring instead to build his narratives around clearly defined goals like “kill dragon” or “destroy magic ring.”

That doesn’t mean Payne and McKay shouldn’t have introduced these plot threads in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. After all, they aren’t writing a book or even making a movie — they’re running a TV show. You have to be sensitive to each media’s strengths and limitations in order to succeed. They can sometimes go out of the book, but that is okay. These narrative devices do more than just undercut the Tolkien-esque vibe. They also affect the pace and focus of the entire show. There’s a Lots going on in Middle-earth until the end The Rings of PowerEpisode 2, however, the entertainment value of these stories strands is wildly variable.

The core “search for Sauron” strand is easily the most compelling of the bunch, and it lends The Rings of Power’s first episode plenty of narrative clarity and momentum. We know the Dark Lord is still out there, we get why Morfydd Clark’s Galadriel wants to take him down — we’re all in right from the jump. As other plots become involved, the clarity of the Sauron story is lost and momentum begins to slow down. Galadriel participates in a Middle-earth re-creation. JawsThe show’s future plans and where it is headed have been as confusing as the mysterious riddle at the gate of Moria.

Image: Amazon Studios

You can, of course. The Lord of the Rings This is, at its core, a tale about a trip. The Rings of Power’s journey has only just begun. And the thing about journeys is that they often have a way of getting better after a rocky start — which may yet prove to be the case with this show. Yes, the first two episodes demonstrate some pretty major issues that the cast and crew need to address in season 1’s six remaining episodes. However, there are still some things to be aware of. Are Signs that indicate The Rings of Power It could be the Middle Earth adaptation that it all wants to become.

The board is clearly being set for the show’s titular magical bling to be forged, which (if the canon of the books is anything to go by) should put the main Sauron plot line front and center, where it belongs. It’s also hinted that a deep dive into Elven culture similar to what was done with the dwarves is on the cards — and most tantalizing of all, teases the prospect of exploring the idea of Elves as Middle-earth’s oppressors. Hopefully, this is emblematic of a greater willingness on Payne and McKay’s part to fill in the gaps left by Tolkien in even bolder ways the further into this first season we get. Let’s not forget the bizarre and the unusual!

Why not? Celebrimbor observes that The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s second episode, true creation requires sacrifice — and surely that applies as much to adaptations weighed down by their own source material as anything else.