In the winter issue of Mslexia there was a rare reader review of a science fiction book. Unfortunately, rather than being an illuminating and interesting read, it was written by someone who had no knowledge of the genre. Appearing to look down her nose at sf, the review consisted of her saying how surprised she was that the book considered issues relevant to women, and how she hadn't known the genre could do that.

Which is a round-about way of acknowledging that I'm not a great candidate for reviewing a fan-film, since I've hardly seen any. Those I have seen are short and funny, in the Red Dwarf fan-skit mode. Therefore I'm stumbling a little blindly, and may fall into the same trap of being surprised that fan-films have something as complicated as "sound". However I do at least have enthusiasm. And spoilers - I've got them too.

Directed by Chris Bouchard, The Hunt for Gollum is an enjoyable forty minute fan-film which has received quite a lot of publicity from the mainstream media over the past few weeks. It's set post-Hobbit and pre-LOTR, and begins with Gandalf and Aragorn concerned about the possibility that Gollum might jeopardise their attempt to keep the ring secret. Aragorn volunteers to search for Gollum, and it's him we follow almost exclusively. BBC online is where I heard about the film, but several big British newspapers also have mentions of it on their websites. Mostly the publicity is centred around the fact that a) it's visually stunning and b) it only cost £3000 to make.

The film is clearly as much of a homage to Peter Jackson's films as to Tolkien's books, and deliberately sets out to be as stylistically similar as possible. I always seem to mention this in my reviews of visual media, but use of colour is very good, and very similar to the films. For the most part deliberately muted towards the greens and greys, there are a few moments of brilliant gold as the sunshine filters through the branches of Epping Forest. The music is good, too - not as hauntingly memorable as the LOTR score, but atmospheric, appropriate and not excessively reliant on strings. Slight sound balance issues meant I was frequently turning the volume down when the music got dramatic and up again when I was trying to hear a character speak, but that's not the end of the world.

The effects are extremely good as well, and I have to feel goodwill to the film-makers for the way they solve the Gollum problem. Though he is shown in excellent CG - and gets a wonderful close-up at the end of the film - forty minutes of Gollum must be pretty expensive. I mean, you can't dress up as Gollum, can you? He's the wrong shape. You'd have to wear... aha!

Gollum spends a lot of his time on-screen in a sack.

Which I think is brilliant. It means that Gollum and Aragorn can actually talk, and that Gollum gets to express his personality without bankrupting anyone. The good vocal performances and script make this work, and I enjoyed the scenes of him trying to persuade Aragorn to let him out. His happy singing about tall trees was great, and I genuinely don't care if was lifted straight from his fish song in Two Towers.

Overall, the film has a lot of charm. Adrian Webster's Aragorn really grew on me, I was quite absorbed in the story and it remained visually strong throughout. For a lot of the time there wasn't actually very much tension - I watched because I was interested rather than because I was on edge - but it's competently done. If I picked a weak point it would be the fight with the ring-wraith, who really should have been scarier (and taller). There's just not enough atmosphere around the black rider once he's off his horse - he's simply another figure with a sword to fight. There's also a confrontation with another ranger which, though brief, sticks in my mind because I wasn't quite sure which ranger was which. Webster does look quite like Mortensen, but placing him next to a similar man in similar clothes with similar hair was a bit silly.

The orc fights are much better - the lighting is good and they're nicely paced. The fight with Goblok, the head orc, is probably the highest point of tension - it's very well choreographed, and he and Aragorn are evenly matched. Mostly, though, the care that's gone into making those orc faces is obvious and fills me with more goodwill. We even get a little banter between orcs early on, which ends stylishly with Aragorn playing the stealthy killer. He's still Strider the Ranger at this point, remember.

And playing the ranger is definitely what he does in this film. I think the best scenes are the tracking and following ones, as we see him finding tiny signs, climbing banks and progressing through the landscapes. They're where the visual style shifts ever so slightly away from Jackson's into something a little different, and I think they're a very nice insight into an aspect of Aragorn's character that the trilogy swiftly moved away from.

Overall, I'm in major admiration of the film-makers, who've produced a genuinely accomplished and enjoyable work. There's a difference in tone from LOTR, and (money aside) I think it's at least partly because there's not the companionship of the trilogy. Aragorn spends much of the time alone, and when he is with people his speech is strictly functional (though nicely written). However as a lone wolf film it's enjoyable, and as a fan production it's an amazing effort. A skim through reviews shows that I'm not the only one who found it a little tricky to see what was going on at times, which I think is part of the problem of having to release on computer only. However I may see if my laptop can cope with the HD version at some point, which might be better. At any rate, it's not an issue that ruined my enjoyment of this very likeable film.

Gollum in a sack remains an idea which wins me over completely.