A couple of weeks ago I learned of the production of a fan-movie based off of the Lord of the Rings series of books, The Hunt for Gollum. The movie was produced by Independent Online Cinema as a not-for-profit film written from material located in the appendixes of the novels. While it may lack the polished realism found in the Peter Jackson films, The Hunt for Gollum manages to capture much of the spirit found in the professional series.

This is due in part to the dedication of the actors who worked hard to remain true to the characters. Visually and aurally, Adrian Webster is a close match for Viggo Mortensen (who played Aragorn in the trilogy movie) and while Christopher Dingli and Matthew Cunningham were not nearly as superb a voice for Gollum as Andy Serkis, they still did a good job of portraying not only the schizophrenic nature of Gollum, but even add a touch of humanity (or perhaps Hobbitness) to the character.

There were several flaws to be found with this film; perhaps greatest in my eyes is the lack of subtitles for the brief moments of elvish dialogue, as well as a lack of English subtitles for viewers who have hearing impairments. Closed captioning would have been especially useful as the movie is fairly quiet. I was barely able to hear dialogue on my computer’s speakers, and was forced to attach speakers to my system to make out what was being said. The prosthetics also vary from some fairly decent masks and costumes to one Orc whose face honestly looked like a sack had been put over the actor’s face with holes cut out for the eyes and mouth.

Flaws aside, The Hunt for Gollum is a superb example of a quality short movie created on a limited budget. Computer generated effects for Gollum were kept to a minimum through the simple method of sticking the little sneak in a sack (which was used to capture Gollum partway through the film). Most CG effects for Gollum were of the character at a distance, though the closing shot of the film presented a close-up of Gollum in his ending dialogue; the CG effects for Gollum were fairly close to those of the professional film.

The Hunt for Gollum is a film by fans for fans; anyone who enjoyed the novels and wished that Peter Jackson’s movie trilogy had included more of these forgotten elements will undoubtedly find something to enjoy with this short film. While it doesn’t recapture the precise imagery of the trilogy, it does a superb job of capturing the heart and soul of those films. As such, it is well worth the half hour’s time to watch the movie.