"Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo?"

Rating: 10/10 (19 August 2010)

For the past week, I'd been pining to complete my rewatch of "The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)," viewing the films for the first time in years. This wait, however arduous, was nothing compared to the 360 days I originally endured between 'The Two Towers (2002)' and 'The Return of the King (2003).' The drought came to an end on December 26, 2003: I remember the exact date because it was the first night of release, and I'd been counting down for the past year. We bought our tickets weeks in advance, waited in line for over an hour, and my brother emptied a packet of jelly lollies over the row in front of us while trying to get the damn packet open.
And so it is that Peter Jackson's trilogy-to-end-all-trilogies finally came to a close, in truly spectacular fashion. With the armies of Mordor marching on Minas Tirith, Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) must recruit the aid of alternative reinforcements if the land of Gondor, ruled by the callous steward Denethor (John Noble), is not to fall before the Great Eye of Sauron. Meanwhile, this epic conflict is contrasted against the image of two little hobbits, Frodo and Sam, dutifully trundling across the wastelands of Mordor, two innocuous Halflings carrying the weight of a million men. Once again, the film excels at these stunning contrasts. The death of Denethor, a powerful, intimate moment of self-realisation, unexpectedly bridges into the Battle for Minas Tirith, the loss of one man suddenly absorbed into the slaughter of thousands.
A word of warning: arachnophobics should be weary of Frodo's excursion into Shelob's Lair, a magnificent work of grotesquerie visual effects, topped only by the "insect pit" in Jackson's own 'King Kong (2005).' Andy Serkis, as the computer-generated Gollum, once again brings pathos and fragility into the role of the tormented former Ring-bearer. 'The Return of the King' has perhaps the most unforgettable final hour I've ever seen, as the fate of all that is good comes down to a scrappy scuffle on the edge of a fiery precipice, this one-on-one conflict somehow more "epic" than the entire Battle of Helms Deep. But Peter Jackson isn't done yet. While excising Tolkien's somewhat anti-climactic "Scouring of the Shire," he nevertheless brings the trilogy to a graceful, and wonderfully satisfying, close, his leisurely winding-down approach doing justice to one of the richest fantasy sagas ever told.