Immensely good conclusion

Rating: 9/10 (9 October 2013)

Having re-watched this on the sofa just the other day i might have been forgiven for thinking my father would perhaps with nothing else to do, sit down and watch it with me and see if he became hooked. His gripe with the lord of the rings is 'its too much fantasy to the point where you can just make any old nonsense up'. I sort of see his point, since the army of the undead in this film was pushing it as far as what i was willing to accept was concerned.
That said its possibly the only thing that tests my patience in this brilliant brilliant film. The pacing was perfect, the narrative flowed back and forth from each character so smoothly in the previous instalment that we sort of took it for granted here and knew what to expect. All the same kudos to Jackson for giving each character enough screen time for us to continue our emotional investment in them. As much as i loved the scenes with Aragon etc, the film is all about frodo and sam to me and i remember in the cinema just being on tender hooks wanting to see how gollums plan would unfold. I think it would have been cool to have a few extra scenes with frodo sam and gollum just showing how gollum is manipulating frodo against sam. Sam asks for the ring but there's no guarantee this would have happened. It would have been cool to see gollum putting sam up to it rather craftily beforehand.
The acting is great and some of the playfulness that the previous instalment had going for it (mostly from Gimli) is not lost, despite a darker film all round. The effects as ever from weta are perfect. For anybody who hasn't seen this film, it's obviously part of a trilogy so don't watch it without having seen the other two. I recently watched the Hobbit and i just don't see it anywhere near the quality of these films. I really hate the obviousness of the CGI in it compared with these films and the fact that the plot feels little and not so important. To conclude my father didn't stay and watch the film having got bored, but still it was worth a go.