Peter Jackson's odyssey comes to a welcomed conclusion

Rating: 7/10 (20 December 2003)

The ring is destroyed! Middle Earth is saved! Hobbits and Elves rejoice!
Peter Jackson's masterful odyssey that began 11 years ago is complete with the release of the third installment of the Lord of the Rings, Return of the King (ROTK).
Peter Jackson's love affair with the J.R.R. Tolkien story is complete with the third film installment, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (ROTK). Audiences have waited through three years of release dates, countless DVD editions and marketing tie-ins to view what is essentially one long 11+ hour movie. And at the end of it all, I too found myself rejoicing - rejoicing that the third movie finally ended!
Lord of the Rings: ROTK is both good and bad with the good being exceptional, but the bad, being prominent enough not to be overlooked. First the good. Ian McKellan as the wise wizard Gandalf is the best he has been in ROTK. Gandalf transformed from being a new generation's Obi Wan Kenobi - as all wise and more powerful after death - to being a vulnerable participant in a future unknown. A scene shared with Viggo Mortensen's Aragon shows Gandalf to be scared for Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Aragon must reassure him to follow his heart. This is Ian McKellan at his best and if he was good enough to garnish an Oscar nomination for the first Lord of the Rings, then he should be assured one with ROTK.
Also showing more acting range that was expected of him is Sean Astin in the role as Sam, the Hobbit that accompanies Frodo on his journey to Mount Doom. Sean shows courage, heart and conflict and we believe in the conviction that the young actor put into his role.
Also on the plus side are the fight scenes in ROTK. The great battles in the Pelennor Fields, Minas Tirith and the Black Gates are speckled with special effects mastery never before seen on the big screen. Kudos also to Mr. Jackson for the amount of humor that was absent from the previous two installments. Seeing Gandalf react to an overeager Pippin (played by Billy Boyd) put the audience into an outburst of laughter - a response not yet heard in the first 9 hours of storytelling.
And finally, and most importantly, the story receives note for being the strongest of the three. With many balls in the air to juggle, Peter Jackson weaves the story through Frodo's trek to Mount Doom with the ever-schizophrenic Gollum, Aragon's journey to regain the throne and Rohan's King Theoden search for an army to wrestle the evil Orcs just to name a few. All stories are equally interesting and Jackson is able to stay true to the novel in bringing the story to the masses.
But not all is good with ROTK. The special effects in the final film are average, that being, not on scale with what was presented in 2001 and 2002. Some effects actually look terrible. The scene where Legolas (Orlando Bloom) is able to get atop a giant elephant looked cheap and unrealistic, and his subsequent dismount which was suppose to appeal to the skateboarders in the audience looked like the promo for some average Sony Playstation game. And Aragon's confrontation with the ghosts of a disgraced army looked like it was cut and paste from Jackson's previous film, The Frighteners.
Also notable was the amount of blue screen images used in the finale. Aragon in front of the army at the Black Gates or Frodo's gaze into the fires of Mount Doom looked terrible when compared to some of the film's other effect achievements.
Then there is the ending. All of them! In a DVD world where extended versions are widely accepted as superior to the original cut, I would have enjoyed ROTK more had the last 30 minutes be struck from the record. After sitting through 3 hours, I had run out of popcorn and was restlessly waiting to use the restroom, but Peter Jackson marched each of his characters out for a curtain call of hugging, bowing, kissing and crying that I thought was completely unnecessary (Do we really need to see Sam get married?).
However, for all its faults, ROTK is intended as one long film adventure and at that, it is exceptional. Peter Jackson had an incredible undertaking in front of him, and unlike the Star Wars or Matrix franchises, The Lord of the Rings was able to maintain a constant tone and feel through its multiple components. For that alone, I take my hat off and salute you.
So it is finally time to take a breath. Or is it? Next year there will be the DVD release of Return of the King followed by the theatrical extended version, then the DVD extended version, then the DVD box set, then the DVD box set with all the extended features. Maybe if we are lucky, someone will rifle through the old house of J.R.R. Tolkien and find the unpublished works of Sam the Hobbit:Journey to Neverland Ranch.