To many, he will always be Frodo Baggins, the brave little furry-footed hobbit who volunteers to bear the burden of carrying the dreaded One Ring as he leaves his bucolic existence behind while sacrificing himself to save Middle-earth in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
But Elijah Wood has had quite a varied career beyond the Shire ever since he made his film debut at 8-years-old with a small part as Video Game Boy #2 in 1989’s “Back to the Future Part II.” He would go on to land the coveted central role in the epic fantasy franchise based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s enduring classic when he was 18. But his early output on the big screen consisted of a string of so-so ‘90s titles such as “Radio Flyer,” “Paradise” and “Forever Young.” However, he often earned praise for his part in even mediocre projects.
But when he reached his teens, Wood would hit rock bottom when he played the title character, a child prodigy who divorces his parents and goes on a journey to find new ones, in “North” (1994). It was a rotten egg of a comedy that stunk up Rob Reiner’s directing hot streak in the ‘90s. It would inspire Roger Ebert to not just give it a rare zero-star rating but also gave birth to his book “I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie.” At least critics aimed most of their slams at the adults and not at Wood.
Lately, the actor has showed a penchant for films on the fringe, including “Maniac” (2012), in which he plays a sicko serial killer; “Pawn Shop Chronicles” (2013), a “Pulp Fiction” rip-off; “Cooties” (2014), about a cannibalism outbreak at an elementary school; and “The Last Witch Hunter” (2015) with Vin Diesel as an immortal hero who saves the Big Apple from the plague. The less said about these releases, the better. Let’s instead concentrate on these dozen more watchable features in Wood’s canon.
Tour our photo gallery, ranked from worst to best, which includes several of the movies mentioned, plus “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “The Ice Storm” and more.
-
12. “The Adventures of Huck Finn” (1993)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director and writer: Stephen Sommers. Starring: Courtney B. Vance, Robbie Coltrane and Jason Robards.
What Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” is for fledgling actresses, Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are for fresh-faced actors, a rite of passage that introduces young moviegoers to literary classics while pleasing their parents. In this Disney-fied eighth adaptation, Wood is Huck, the half-literate son of a drunk, who fakes his own death and runs away with Jim (Vance), a slave. They get entangled in various harrowing adventures including being rescued from drowning by a rich family, running into a pair of con men (Coltrane and Robards) and narrowly avoiding getting Jim hanged. Roger Ebert praised Wood’s performance, writing that he is “mercifully free of cuteness and other affectations of child stars, and makes a resolute, convincing Huck,” one who changes his racist views from his time spent with Jim.
-
11. “Flipper” (1996)
Image Credit: Universal/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director and writer: Alan Shapiro. Starring: Paul Hogan, Chelsea Field, Isaac Hayes, Jonathan Banks.
This remake of a 1963 film that was turned a TV series (1964-67) is based on a story by Ricou Browning, the stuntman inside the Gill-man suit in 1954’s “Creature From the Black Lagoon.” It’s strictly finny business aimed at the kiddies, but the cast manages to keep matters buoyant. Wood is a sullen pubescent named Sandy Ricks who is upset that he has to spend the summer with his quirky Uncle Porter (Hogan) at a seaside town. While his uncle makes time with the local lady shopkeeper, Rick befriends her daughter. But when Sandy meets Flipper, he only has eyes for his aquatic buddy. After bad guys sicken the dolphin with toxic waste, they cause Sandy to fall out of his dinghy and into the ocean. But fear not, since Flipper and his dolphin pod save the day.
-
10. “Deep Impact” (1998)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock The hobbit Director: Mimi Leder. Writers: Bruce Joel Rubin, Michael Tolkin. Starring: Tea Leoni, Morgan Freeman, Robert Duvall.
Leo (Wood), a teen amateur astronomer, spies an unusual object in the sky. Turns out, it is a comet hurtling towards Earth. He takes a picture of the threatening object and sends it to an adult astronomer, who dies in a car accident before he can send out a warning. Panic takes place all over the world when word gets out that the hurtling mass can cause mass extinction. Much was made out of the similarities to “Armageddon,” which also came out in the summer of 1998. Critics blamed a melodramatic script for diluting the tension that should be driving this supposed disaster flick. Wood at least gets to hang with cool chick Leelee Sobieski, who retired from acting in 2012, as his girlfriend.
-
9. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (2012)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Director: Peter Jackson. Writers: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Jackson, Guillermo del Toro. Starring: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Richard Armitage, Andy Serkis.
Taking a slim storybook tale – the precursor to “The Lord of the Rings” — and blowing it up into three bloated epics is trouble from the start. Not that it hurt the box office. But rowdy dwarves are never going to outdo sweet hobbits when it comes to cinematic charisma. The only two worthwhile scenes in this first of a trilogy? When Wood reprises his role as Frodo early on as he reunites with Ian Holm as his uncle, Bilbo Baggins, who is writing the tale of the adventure he took 60 years before to share with him. The other is the meeting between Martin Freeman as young Bilbo and the sensational Serkis as a motion-capture Gollum, as they engage in a riddle game after the hobbit pockets the creature’s “precious” – the ring.
-
8. “Bobby” (2006)
Image Credit: Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock Director and writer: Emilio Estevez. Starring: Harry Belafonte, Nick Cannon, Laurence Fishburne, Hellen Hunt, Lindsay Lohan.
Estevez offers an ambitious fictional account of the hours before the assassination of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy in the kitchen of Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel in June of 1968, after he won the Democratic presidential primary in California. He employs a large ensemble cast as mostly fictional characters played by well-known actors as if it were a “Love Boat” episode. Wood is a young man who is about to wed a woman he barely knows to keep from going to Vietnam. That she is Lindsay Lohan, before her lifestyle choices took a wrong turn, is a reminder of how fresh and engaging she once was as an actress. Despite Wood’s strange ‘60s sideburns, their shared kiss before they hit their hotel bed is a sweet moment.
-
7. “Grand Piano” (2014)
Image Credit: Nostromo/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Eugenio Mira. Writer: Damien Chazelle. Starring: John Cusack, Allen Leech, Dee Wallace.
Take note of who the screenwriter is. Before there was “Whiplash” and “La La Land,” there was this mostly nifty exercise of having a concert pianist being held hostage onstage during a performance of a piece known as “the unplayable piece.” Wood is Tom Selznick, a keyboard prodigy who is trying to make amends for chocking during his last concert when he couldn’t finish. Making matters even more nerve-wracking is a note left on his sheet music that reads, “Play one wrong note and you die.” It seems there is a sniper afoot, as the red laser dot from his rifle bounces about. Wood is duly wide-eyed and agitated as he seemingly tickles the ivories while fearing for his life during his comeback. Think of this as a diabolical blend of Brian De Palma and Dario Argento by way of “The Phantom of the Opera.”
-
6. “Sin City” (2005)
Image Credit: Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock Directors: Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino. Writers: Miller, Rodriguez. Starring: Jessica Alba, Benicio del Toro, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Rutger Hauer.
This ripely stylized comic-book-style crime anthology boasts an immense cast to fill up its four vignettes. Wood plays against type in “The Hard Goodbye” as Kevin, a cannibal who is hunted down by Rourke’s Marv after he kills his prostitute lover, Goldie, in his bed. Kevin is a real gem all right, one who stashes the heads of his slaying victims in a basement. Turns out, the corrupt Cardinal Roark (Hauer) ordered the murder. Marv kills Kevin, and takes his head to Roark, who tells him that the killer was eating prostitutes to swallow their souls. If Wood wanted to put the self-sacrificing Frodo behind him, this sexy, savage plunge into pulp is one way to do it.
-
5. “Happy Feet” (2006)
Image Credit: Warner Bros/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: George Miller. Writer: Warren Coleman, John Collee, Miller, Judy Morris. Starring: Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman.
In this joyous animated jukebox musical, Wood lends his voice to Mumble, a young emperor penguin in Antarctica who lost his breed’s natural ability to sing – a talent necessary for mating — after being dropped by his dad before he was hatched. Instead, he can tap dance, a talent that labels him as a misfit and causes the elder penguins to reject him. He hangs out with a group of Adelie penguins who befriend him. When mating season arrives, Mumble recruits an Adelie pal who sings “My Way” in Spanish while he tries to lip sync along to impress his lady love Gloria (Murphy). But he ends up revealing his tap dancing skills while moving in sync with her song. He gets exiled but is rescued after landing on a beach in Australia. One of the rare Oscar winners for Best Animated Feature made by Warner Bros. Broadway tap whiz Savion Glover helped choreographed Mumble’s dance moves.
-
4. “Avalon” (1990)
Image Credit: Barry Wetcher/Baltimore/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director and writer: Barry Levinson. Starring: Armin Mueller-Stahl, Elizabeth Perkins, Joan Plowright, Aidan Quinn.
This is the third title in the quartet (1982’s “Diner,” 1987’s “Tin Men” and 1999’s “Liberty Heights”) of Levinson’s odes to his upbringing in Baltimore. The story focuses on his Russia-immigrant family in the ‘40s and ‘50s, focusing on the cross-cultural clash between the elder members of the household (Mueller-Stahl, Plowright) who steadfastly stick to Old World rituals as the modern era of TV sets and fancy automobiles dawns. Wood is Michael, a stand-in for the filmmaker whose large doe eyes soak up the goings-on with his relatives, including his appliance salesman father (Quinn) and devoted mom (Perkins). The relationship between Wood and Mueller-Stahl is the true heart of this star-spangled film. “Avalon” was Oscar-nominated for its original screenplay, original score, cinematography and costumes.
-
3. “The Ice Storm” (1997)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Ang Lee. Writer: James Schamus. Starring: Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Jamey Sheridan, Sigourney Weaver, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Adam Hann-Byrd.
In the swinging ‘70s, two upper-class families living in New Canaan, Conn., in 1973 become unraveled by the secret affair between Ben Hood (Kline) and Janey Carver (Weaver). As the adults’ embrace of excessive drinking and sexual experimentation affect the behavior of their children. Wendy Hood indulges in sexual games with her classmates as well as with the Carver brothers (Wood, Adam Hann-Byrd). Matters come to a head during the long Thanksgiving holiday, when the adult couples attend a neighborhood “key party” involving married pairs swapping partners based on what key they pick up out of a bowl. During the ice storm outside, a tragic death delivers a cold slap of reality to both families.
-
2. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004)
Image Credit: Moviestore Collection/REX/Shutterstock Director: Michel Gondry. Writer: Charlie Kaufman, Gondry, Bismuth. Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Wilkinson.
Free-spirited kook Clementine (Winslet) and inhibited Joel (Carey) meet on a train going from Montauk to Rockville Centre and are drawn to one another. Turns out both have had a memory erasure procedure from a company called Lacuna to blot out details of their previous relationship. While Joel fights to preserve the good parts of what they shared, sneaky Lacuna technician Patrick (Wood) tries to get close to Clementine by pretending to be Joel. While a puzzler to many when it first opened, the status of this unusual look at the damage done and the hope that lingers after romantic break-ups has risen in esteem over the years. Oscar-wise, lead actress Winslet and the original screenplay earned nominations.
-
1. “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003)
Image Credit: Pierre Vinet/New Line/Saul Zaentz/Wing Nut/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Director: Peter Jackson. Writers: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Jackson. Starring: Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortenson, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Andy Serkis.
Jackson has said that he cast Wood as unlikely hero Frodo because he “has emerged, I believe, as the most talented actor, in his age group.” Although he shines in each of the three fantasy epics, the then-18-year-old is at his peak in the first chapter, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” when he transforms from happy-go-lucky hobbit to stepping up to be the bearer of the ring that must be destroyed. He believably succeeds both in his playful camaraderie with his loyal Shire friends Pippin (Billy Boyd), Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and especially Astin as steadfast sidekick Samwise Gamgee to his realization of what his treacherous journey to save Middle-earth entails as all matter of evil forces target him. At last, Wood owned a role that hit on all his strengths as an actor. As the subsequent sequels, “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King,” expanded the universe of characters, Frodo isn’t always front and center as he grows ever more haunted by outside forces on his dangerous mission. But such sequences as Sam and Frodo dealing with Gollum‘s deceptions and facing down the giant spider Shelob offer heroic release while they complete their quest are standouts. The franchise would collect a total of 30 Oscar nominations resulting in 17 wins, including Best Picture for “Return of the King.”
