A majestic and exhilarating piece of film-making

Rating: 10/10 (11 February 2004)

I was late on to the Lord of the Rings bandwagon.
Having not read the books and having seen the first film on DVD, I did not get into the "hype". Thinking the first film was good, I was still not riding the LOTR bandwagon.
Then "The Two Towers" came and wrapped me up. I was officially on board.
It all culminates with a stunning, beautiful and fiercely exciting chapter. The Return of the King might be as close to perfect film-making as I have ever seen.
Beautifully shot, with marvelous environments and spectacular CGI, this is a well-crafted body of work. I do not know much about Peter Jackson, but he has vaulted ahead of George Lucas and perhaps even Ridley Scott into the elite class of filmmakers. It is that good.
Balancing emotion with special effects and staying true to the source material is an enormous undertaking. Jackson pulled it off with a trilogy that few can deny is the strongest in cinematic history.
And Return of the King is the best of the three, and worthy of the enormous praise it has received.