At this point, it's all about the payoff and "Return of the King'" delivers

Rating: 10/10 (27 November 2012)

When a film series or trilogy receives as impeccable a treatment a J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," its nearly impossible for its grand finale to falter. Such is the case of "The Return of the King," an absolutely colossal conclusion to Peter Jackson's epic vision.
Considering a majority of "Return of the King" is payoff for being patient in the previous two chapters, the film is the most fun of the three and the biggest crowd pleaser. If you loved the previous films, you can't not love this one more. It's not necessarily that the film is better. Rather, it's so tonally and structurally consistent with the other films that by virtue of being the end, it stands out as an incredible experience, hence its winning of the Oscar for Best Picture.
After the Battle of Helm's Deep and the defeat of Isengard, the armies of Mordor move on Gondor and the city of Minas Tirith. With King Theoden (Bernard Hill) of Rohan wary of giving all his muscle to the men of Gondor, Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) ride there to convince the steward of Gondor, Denethor (John Noble), the mourning father of Boromir, to extend his hand to Rohan and in effect, to Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) heir to the throne and rightful king of Gondor, a title the ranger struggles with.
The War of the Ring is something to behold, even though it's interrupted by Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam's (Sean Astin) quest to cast the Ring back into the fires of Mt. Doom. Rather than having the forces of Sauron and the armies of Gondor and Rohan clash in a tense battle in which the victor remains unclear, the story sets the battle up to have two extreme sides, namely that we spend a majority of the battle scenes watching Minas Tirith get torn to pieces wondering how good can possibly triumph.
On the other end, we know that Gollum (Andy Serkis) has plans to betray Frodo and Sam in order to repossess his one and only Precious. The debate between the two hobbits on whether Gollum can be trusted reaches its zenith in a heartbreaking way seeing as we are aware of Gollum's intentions, and by this point, with the Ring reaching Mordor, it calls out for its master and consequently has a horrible effect on Frodo.
The story pushes certain failure to the brink in both the War of the Ring and in Frodo and Sam's quest to destroy the Ring, and it's easy enough to buy every ounce of it despite knowing it can't possibly end in a horrible way. That's testament to the power of the storytelling going on here.
How "Return of the King" really one ups "The Two Towers" is that it doesn't feel as though its bouncing around nearly as much between the different story lines even though it is. The momentum of the impending battle and Frodo and Sam inching closer and closer to Mt. Doom keep things on edge and driving forward at all times. No scene feels obligatory or like its stalling, and even some creative scene juxtaposition such as Pippin singing to Denethor as Faramir charges into battle only makes the script appear even stronger.
From an action and visual spectacle standpoint, "Return of the King" completely outdoes the previous chapters. A battle sequence in which Legolas (Orlando Bloom) takes down an entire oliphant on his own sums up the quality of the film in the most basic entertainment sense. Even with all the doom and gloom, there's still plenty of humor in this one as well.
The resolution of the many subplots also helps to improve the overall quality of "Two Towers" in the context of the trilogy just by providing payoff to all the story lines that film built yet to which it gave no resolution. Everything that Eowyn (Miranda Otto) does in "Two Towers" feel for naught by the end of that film, but she gets her shining moment in "Return of the King" that brings her character full circle.
"Return of the King" works well on its own, but it also proves that "The Lord of the Rings" was meant to be watched together as a trilogy, as lots of small details in the first two films pay bigger dividends in the finale. Jackson certainly proved why the entire trilogy needed to be filmed together as a complete entity; you couldn't just hold off on the rest of the series if "The Fellowship of the Ring" didn't pan out financially.
The emotional payoff of the film is testament to the work on all ends of production, for everything from the script to the on-screen talent to the set decorators to the sound designers creates the aura of authenticity that makes this fantasy feel so real and convincing, while also pulling us along on an emotional journey in which we feel so heavily invested by the time Frodo and Sam reach the summit of Mt. Doom. As with their journey in the story, once you've gone this far as a viewer, you're incredibly committed to the outcome, and what an outcome. Bravo.
~Steven C
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