A long way since Meet the Feebles...

Rating: 10/10 (9 February 2004)

As the poster for the recent Scary Movie 3 boldly declares - "All Great Trilogies Come In Threes". And thus comes to an end one of the greatest trilogies of all times. No, not Scary Movie but LOTR. I have been to see this film twice now and all I can say is "Incredible". There aren't enough words available to describe how I felt at the end of this movie.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Peter Jackson is a genius. He seems like a quiet, overweight, unassuming, slightly eccentric character (Fact: he never wears shoes, which is all well in good in nice clean New Zealand, but he goes barefoot even when he visits London!), but he has had the bravery and audacity to pull off the unthinkable and create three of the greatest cinematic works of all time. The thing that saddens me the most is that it's entirely possible that there will never be films again as moving and breathtaking as these. One of the trilogy's strengths, The Return of the King in particular, is that not only does have it have amazing special effects and completely unbelievable sound design (this film more than any other makes me want surround sound at home), but at it's core it has heart and emotion. You care so deeply about the characters that you cry when they cry, laugh when they laugh and feel fear when they are in danger. This for me is Jackson's greatest achievement. It would have been easy for a lesser director to lose sight of that in a large spectacle picture like this one (think Pearl Harbour), which just proves that Peter Jackson truly is one of the all time great directors and deserves all the praise and accolades that can be heaped upon him. But he's not interested in any of that. He's just happy to be making movies that audiences enjoy. His hobby is now his full time job.