Best one of the lot

Rating: 10/10 (18 December 2003)

I don't know what to say about this film. I don't know where to begin. I don't know what to focus on, think on, obsess on first, as I have never seen a film so complete, so nearly perfect, that it almost calls for no words at all. I usually have a lot to say, thinking, and sometimes rightfully so, that the better a piece of art the more one should dissect it. Make no mistake, this is a piece of art. The whole trilogy, all three movies, are breathtaking pieces of creativity at its highest. It is what Aristotle considered "high art" and it makes no apology for making its audience think, while giving them enough visual effects to just astonish a a dumbfounded movie theatre. While all three pieces are art, this last film is the Mona Lisa of the group. I adored Fellowship, loved Twin Towers but found some of the magic gone, and have been changed by Return of the King. This movie tried to do so many things, which usually makes for a choppy, chaotic movie going experience. Movies that attempt too much usually in the end resemble politicians trying to be everything to everyone. By the end no one wants anything to do with them. Consider this the exception to the rule. It tries to be a character driven drama, which is succeeds in doing. It tries to be an action packed, visual effects masterpiece, which it succeeds in doing. And finally, it attempts to interject enough humor and lighthearted attitude to keep the audience from become enveloped in a dark cloud of its own, which it also succeeds in doing. Oh yes, and one more thing: it attempts the greatest challenge of them all, how to turn a literary classic, of such utter complexity that no one else has ever attempted it, into a classic piece of film, while staying true to the books themselves, and in this the film succeeds beyond my wildest dreams. The struggle in this last film is so desperate, the drain so apparent on all the warriors faces, that even those of us who know the end by heart still grimace as our heros face peril after peril. And our characters connect with each of us, completely. We feel for each one. We know each ones strengths and weakness's, and we fear that one or two may, in the end, not make it. I can imagine what it must be like to fall in love with these movies having never read the books, having never fallen in love with the world Tolkien created on page. To not know what is going to happen, who is going to live and who is going to die, must be a nerve racking experience in this film. One I envy in some ways, though the love of the books is far greater and more fullfilling then anything experienced in the theatre. No, this film keeps the book to heart, and respects the author, the true imagination behind the world we see on the screen. So many films today, taken from extrodinary novels, try too hard to distance themselves from the writer and their vision. Each one inevitably fails miserably. But this film, and all three in fact, stay as close as possible to the novel that one would suspect Tolkien is smiling to himself somewhere right now. I could write another 1000 words on the acting in this film, which should eventually be recognized, and the direction of such complex movies that require so many story lines to blend seamlessly, but that almost takes away from the beauty of this film. You see, at the end of this movie you don't feel as if you have watched a story, a fictional tale involving fake characters. Instead, you feel attached. You feel one with the people who have sweat and suffered in the screen above. There are no actors to congratulate because these are real people, living real adventures, adventures we have the privilege to ease drop on. I am sad these films are over, sadder then I have ever been before. I will eventually own these movies, and eventually, on a rainy or snowy day, I will watch all three in succession. But I will never again have the pleasure to experience these movies for the first time. I will never again be able to feel that pit in my stomach as moments are revealed and characters become heros. I will never again feel the way I do tonight, and that makes me sad. But for all of you who have not seen this movie yet, those feelings await you.