I liked it.

Rating: Null/10 (17 December 2003)

Frodo and Sam are still being guided towards Mount Doom by Gollum, while Merry and Pippin bask in Treebeard's victory at Isengaard, and the rest of the fellowship must make a move after the battle of Helm's Deep.
As we approach the end of Peter Jackson's momentous last part of his trilogy, a strange feeling overcomes the audience. It is a mixture of disappointment at the end of the greatest movie event of our lives, and a feeling of relief that even at the last, Jackson has managed to satisfy and fulfil his audience, there is no feeling of let down, no ball has been dropped and Jackson has created the best imaginable movie trilogy of all time.
Even looking at Return of the King as a single film, it is a triumph, and whatever standard you wish to judge the film upon it is a resounding success. By turns, it is a thrilling, moving, frightening and emotionally fraught ride blessed with the finest action sequences, battle scenes and special effects ever committed to celluloid and some superb acting.
One of Jackson's original strengths was his cast, and when one considers the scale of his achievements in terms of the creations of Gollum in The Two Towers, and the stunning rendering of Shelob here, there was a danger that the more human elements of the tale would be overshadowed and subsequently ignored.
The CGI creations of these two creatures have simply raised the bar for the rest of the movie world. Their integration into middle-earth has been so seamless. Of course, after the unveiling of Gollum, in last year's The Two Towers, the expectations are raised much, much higher, for this instalment. Jackson, and his team at WETA, though, have not been found wanting, indeed, Shelob may be cinema's most frightening arachnid (it's all in the way they move), and they have also managed to include a zombie army, and some seemingly nandrolone-influenced elephants.
In the midst of all this scale, the performances of the entire cast throughout the whole trilogy have been outstanding, and the members of the fellowship have all deservedly become huge stars, while the likes of Bernard Hill and Andy Serkis have just been wonderful. In Return of the King, the battle scenes have got bigger and the performances of Hill, Serkis, Sean Astin and Billy Boyd, as well as the immaculate Sir Ian McKellen are truly sensational.
And, while the film still has the occasional clunky line (mostly Tolkein's), there is little effect on the thrust or pacing of the film, as Jackson's skills in handling the delicate, fragmented narratives are so immaculate. As we track between Gondor and Rohan, and then to Sam, Frodo and Smeagol, our interest is kept piqued by all of these disparate threads.

Our interest and belief in the characters is one of Jackson's true trump cards, the battle between good and evil isn't a new story for cinema to tackle, but the time and the care that has been spent on these characters, from casting all the way through to execution has completely engaged his audience. The other masterstroke was the decision to film the trilogy away from Hollywood. Not only has this allowed the director the freedom to work at his own pace, and to make decisions, which might otherwise have been rejected by producers, but it has also allowed him to use the beautiful natural habitat of New Zealand.
In a similar manner to the way that the cast have helped to engage the sympathies of the audience, so the scenery has benefited the tale. In a battle to save the world, no right-minded soul is ever going to be ambivalent when the world as it is presented to us is so breathlessly beautiful. Jackson's achievement is so immense that he needs no awards to furnish it. This trilogy will truly stand alone as the single greatest movie achievement of all time.