Fantastic - shame about the last 20 minutes

Rating: 9/10 (18 December 2003)

Brilliant and gripping. Gollum follows on from The Two Towers by outdoing all other cast members. Gandalf improved again. Was surprised by Jackson's homo-erotic interpretation of a) smeagull + the guy he murders and b) hobbits in general...hadn't picked up on that in the book myself. Fabulous battle sequences, perhaps focussing too much on the Riders of Rohan and not enough on the gradual defence and loss of Minas Tirith; I suppose there just wasn't time. Only problem is that the film is overly faithful to the book in winding things up - i.e. spends too long portraying the end of the fellowship and return to normality. Some of it is truly cringeworthy and sadly out of context. Luckily though, it doesn't detract that much from what is an exceptional ending to an exceptional trilogy.