Lord of the Rings: Return of the King


Movie Review for LOTR:ROTK

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

OK, before we begin, I must assume that any of my readers who are reading this have read the trilogy or at the very least have seen the first two films. I will try to avoid any spoilers, but if you aren't familiar with the trilogy, this review may give away more than you might like.

The three of us (Lynda, Heather and myself) went out to Showcase Stoneybrook the Saturday after the film opened. I normally expect to have to hunt hard to find a parking spot on Saturdays during the matinées, but was unprepared for the nearly endless cruising we had to endure. Of course, by the time we got into the theatre, the next showing was sold out, and the showing 30 minutes later was nearly so. I guess movietickets.com may be getting more of my business in the future. After getting our soft drinks, popcorn and my unsalted pretzel nuggets (with cheese), we went to stand in line to get into the theatre and wait. Waited long enough that I finished my nuggets, and the popcorn was nearly gone.

We finally made our way in to get our seats. Had been a long time since I had been in a sold-out movie; just glad it wasn't summer...

In the almost 50 years since the trilogy was published and the nearly 40 years since I read it, Tolkien fans have invested a lot of imagination in the visualization of Middle Earth of the Third Age, along with a long-lived kinship with the wizards, hobbits, elves, men and dwarves who inhabited that distant land and time. I suppose no one could have brought to the screen a vision that would satisfy every fan's inner version of what Middle Earth should be, but for my money, New Zealand in director Peter Jackson's hands will do nicely. The grand sweep of fantastic vistas, enhanced here and there with cutting-edge CGI work from WETA Workshop is close to how I imagined it would look all those years ago while reading and daydreaming rainy afternoons away.

The film opens with an exposition of how the Ring of Power came into the possession of Smeagol, and how its terrible influence turned a peaceful hobbit into a murderer and twisted and corrupted him into Gollum. It was nice seeing Andy Serkis actually get screen time as Smeagol without the CGI effects over his portrayal of Gollum. You feel more sympathy for the Smeagol character in his battle in duality with the covetously evil Gollum after this sequence.

After all the set-up and meanderings of the first two films (spectacular though they were), this films brings everything into sharper focus. Gandolf (Sir Ian McKellen) and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) work to unite the forces of Gondor and Rohan to battle the dark forces of Mordor at Minas Tirith. In this we have the central theme of the film; the uniting of disparate peoples for the a selfless common good — distracting Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor from his search for the One Ring so that Frodo (Elijah Wood) might have a chance of destroying the Ring in the fire of Mount Doom from which it was cast.

The sweep and scope of this film are truly amazing, your are eyes almost overwhelmed with powerful images, one after another for the whole length of the film. The computer effects are so seamless as to be all but invisible and this helps draw you deeper into the fantasy, almost making you feel a part of the action and bringing you closer to the characters — a grand achievement in storytelling and presentment.

The hobbits are back in this film after being pretty much left on the sidelines for the second film. Frodo and Sam (Sean Astin) have finally reached Mordor. Here Gollum shows them a high stairway into Mordor, that also leads to the lair of Shelob the spider, whom Gollum hopes will capture and kill Frodo and Sam so he may regain the Ring. I won't go into details here, but the fight between Shelob and the hobbits is extremely intense; don't take kids to see this film, it will give them nightmares.

The battle sequences are as horrific as the battles from Akira Kurosawa's movies. It is truly unreal what they can do with CGI today. Ten thousand troops of various species fighting and interacting in a believable way, like they used 10,000 extras to film these sequences. You will find yourself dodging swords and battle-axes and ducking flying fell-beast.

OK, now my gripes. I think it is time to bring back the Intermission to all films that approach or exceed a length of three hours. While I was emotionally drained at the end of the film, my butt was so numb I could barely stand up. The last chapter in the book is titled "Many Partings", and the film presents them all; it was only by virtue of having read the book that I actually knew when the film had really ended and that there was not another ending coming. I think there were six endings to the movie, but who was counting. But even with these, the movie is a wonderful achievement, and when taken as a whole (which by the way, is how the trilogy was filmed, all three films at once) it approaches masterpiece status.

Final rating: 9 stars out of 10.

PG-13
3 hours 21 minutes

Internet Movie Database Link
Official Website

Posted: Tue - December 30, 2003 at 04:48 PM      

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