The only good things about The Return of the King are the two films that came before it.

Rating: 5/10 (21 August 2007)

The great bang that started with The Fellowship of the Ring went out with a whimper. Somehow, after pushing through one harrowing obstacle after another armed with nothing but wits, courage, and sheer sacrifice, our heroes finally came to the end of their rope at Minas Tirith. By all expectations, this final climatic battle should have ended with the scorching of the White City and the utter annihilation of the last remnants of the enemies of Sauron. Yet, miraculously, a legion of undead floats (literally) forth from god knows where and sweeps aside the minions of Sauron like a storm scattering leaves. This turning of the tide takes about 10 seconds on screen and not only ruined the Return of the King for me, which I immensely enjoyed up to that point, but almost killed my high opinion of the entire LOTR trilogy.
The movie should never have introduced the undead and stayed true to the book's use of Man as the ultimate victor over Sauron's Orcs. This plot alteration makes Aragorn appear vain or foolish, since given the ease that the undead defeated the Orcs and Mumakil at Minas Tirith, it would not have taken them much greater effort to rout what remained of Sauron's forces in Mordor. Yet Aragorn insisted on releasing the undead prematurely and drawing out the Orcs in Mordor in a largely token gesture. It further undercuts the wisdom of all the protagonists (Gandulf, the elfs) since none of them had the foresight of focusing on reforging Narsil and use the undead to handily defeat Sauron.
The third installment in the great LOTR trilogy possesses none of the energy that made the first two films so compelling. Even the final climatic battle feel tired and rely on witticism and deus ex machina to carry the plot through to its conclusion ("I am a woman." I concede this line is quite a classic, however.) It is, much like Matrix Revolutions, the worse film in the series, riding on the coat tails of its much more captivating predecessors.