The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

I've just seen this on the big screen for the first time since I saw it at London's sadly now long-gone Odeon at Marble Arch, which - at the time - boasted the biggest screen in the UK, and it has lost little of it's magic. Continuing with the interwoven tales of "Frodo", "Sam" and their treacherous guide "Gollum" as they trek through fire and brimstone to get the ring to Mount Doom; whilst Gandalf, Aragorn and the surviving members of the fellowship try to stem the might of "Sauron" and his armies of orcs and their allies. While this is undoubtedly a magnificent piece of cinema, I find the story drags a bit. I found the the focus to be too much on the less interesting characters - the lovelorn "Eowyn" (Miranda Otto); the delusional "Denethor" (John Noble) and decent but rather wimpish "Faramir" (David Wenham) as "Gondor" faces the wrath of their nemesis, and that slows the pace from the action just when it ought to be building. The delightful, friendly, rivalry between "Gimli" & "Legolas" features all too sparingly and it's got too ponderous a narrative to sustain the four hours the otherwise visionary Peter Jackson has created. Fortunately, the triple-header quest with Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and a superb Andy Serkis keep the other strand moving along suspensefully and tensely. The battle scenes are superb, though - when we get them, the effects really do rise to the occasion and, of course, the striking cinematography coupled with the inspired themes from Howard Shore contribute to a thoroughly entertaining adaptation of a thoroughly captivating fantasy adventure. If you make it past the start of the credits, there is the gloriously haunting "Into the West" from Annie Lennox to top off this finest of trilogies. The Oscar/BAFTA awards this achieved are a just reward for years of stunningly creative effort from thousands of people who turned the imagination of a 20th Century English academic into films that will last forever.

A fitting end to a classic trilogy. Frodo, Samwise, and Gollum journey through a Hell on what is called "Middle Earth", while Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas go to war. King Theoden must decide whether to help those who would not help him. Merry wants to war, but is too small. Pippin finds himself getting in more and more mischief. Lots of subplots. Never a dull second. Masterfully dierected. What more can be said? Truly mesmerizing every step of the way, and a movie with maybe four endings that just lead into each other, and we still can't get enough.

As an avid fan of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings from long before New Line announced this movie "trilogy," I must say all three films were fairly large disappointments. Now, mind you, I am not your usual, "The book is better" movie reviewer. But it is almost like Peter Jackson went out of his way to take out the most crucial elements of the books and replace it with drivel. Also every line that sounds even remotely cool in the books must be given to Gandalf, no matter who actually said it... That's just frustrating, despite Sir Ian McKellen's stellar performance. With what I would hope is the obvious exception of Orlando Bloom's third dismal performance as Legolas, the actors all did quite well; the characters were just not allowed to shine as they do in the books. I see that the common consensus is that this movie is too long, and I agree. What's most frustrating about that to me is that this movie had to finish The Two Towers since that film did not complete, and then this film left out the pivotal ending of the saga. The Return of the King is actually the shortest volume of the three (there are six books, two in each volume). As some have noted, the film noticeably scraps the scouring of the Shire, but for those who might have hoped for a fourth installment to finish that story, Peter Jackson dashed all hopes by disturbingly killing off Saruman at the beginning of the extended edition. By the by, I understand many people feel that the scouring of the Shire is anticlimactic after the final defeat of Sauron, but for myself, I think the point that there is still evil in the world, and that heroes must still rise to fight it, is one of Tolkien's triumphs. Back to my main point, though: the books were shorter while telling more story, because despite his depth and detail, Tolkien understood how to drive a story along. Peter Jackson, on the other hand, fails on that count. Anyway, I am someone who always hoped that these movies would be made (I grew up watching the animations produced by Rankin/Bass and Fantasy Films). But now I suppose I'll have to wait until someone is daring enough to try again, despite the overwhelming success of these films (which will probably not happen in my lifetime). In the meantime, I'll continue to read the books every year.