The time has come... for the dominion of Men.

Rating: 10/10 (13 January 2014)

At last the full arc is visible, and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy comes into final focus. "The Return of the King" dispatches its characters to their destinies with a grand and eloquent confidence. This is the best of the three, and certifies the "Ring" trilogy as a work of bold ambition at a time of cinematic timidity.
The final battle is kind of magnificent. The desire to depict fantastic events of unimaginable size and power, and with their own cheerful reliance on visual trickery. We see men and even an army of the dead join battle against Orcs, flying dragons, and vast lumbering elephantine creatures that serve as moving platforms for machines of war. As a flaming battering-ram challenges the gates of the city, we feel the size and weight and convincing shudder of impacts that exist only in the imagination. Enormous bestial Trolls pull back the springs for catapults to hurl boulders against the walls and towers of Minas Tirith, which fall in cascades of rubble (only to seem miraculously restored in time for a final celebration).
The third film gathers all of the plot strands and guides them toward the great battle at Minas Tirith; it is "before these walls, that the doom of our time will be decided." The city is a spectacular achievement by the special- effects artisans, who show it as part fortress, part Emerald City, topping a mountain, with a buttress reaching out over the plain below where the battle will be joined. In a scene where Gandalf rides his horse across the drawbridge and up the ramped streets of the city, it's remarkable how seamlessly Jackson is able to integrate computer- generated shots with actual full-scale shots, so they all seem of a piece.
Jackson's achievement cannot be denied. "The Return of the King" is such a crowning achievement, such a visionary use of all the tools of special effects, such a pure spectacle, that it can be enjoyed; Tolkien's story is so sweeping and Jackson includes so much of it that only devoted students of the Ring can be sure they understand every character, relationship and plot point.