Jackson's Trilogy Ends

Rating: 8/10 (2 December 2005)

Jackson's adaption of the Lord of the Rings has been an excellent series of movies and my expectations were rather high for the third part. This is where the biggest weakness in Jackson's films strikes back. After sitting through two movies that were nearly 3 hours, I have to watch one more that is more than 3 hours. It's times like these that I wish that Jackson could've given me a break. And that's just the regular version, I have no desire to see the "full-cut" of this picture.
While "Fellowship of the Ring" was quite charming and "The Two Towers" a great action-packed film, Return of the King seems just a tad over-blown. Sure, there was a lot of warring in the book too, but this movie never stood out from the other two in any particular way. Though it has those nice little Jackson-moments, they tend to get lost in a film as big as this. I was also a little disappointed that some aspects of the plot (mainly Saruman's fate) are never really discussed.
Once we get pass these I have to admit that many parts of the movie were most impressive and it is a great film and a must-see if you've already seen the first two.
Regardless, I still feel it falls short of the first two.