The multiple endings don't dampen its effect; it's the best in the trilogy by far.

Rating: 8/10 (25 June 2018)

'The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)' is the best of the three mainly because it is, for the most part, so pacy and persistently forward-moving. It's constantly engaging and does a good job of wrapping up its story in a suitably epic and entertaining way. It does suffer from multiple endings, though. These could each have done the job (except for the one that's particularly silly) but none of them wrap up the picture especially well in conjunction with one another. There's also an occasional feeling that there's less plot this time around, with more emphasis placed upon phenomenally epic battles - some of the largest in scale I've ever seen. However, this one is more of an ensemble piece than the others and it intercuts between its main stories just often enough that you always care about each of its never-more-interesting dangling threads. Although the emphasis of this picture does seem slightly less on our protagonist's journey to rid Middle Earth of the one ring than you'd perhaps expect, it strikes a balance between all of its characters - especially those who were sidelined before - and makes sure that they all have something important to do and that you care about them while they are doing it. Because of this, it's the most character-focused in the trilogy, even if some of the 'main' players are given slightly less to do. Thankfully, it also means that Sam, who is clearly the most heroic of the hobbits, finally has his day as a hero (even if most other characters don't acknowledge it) and it is incredibly satisfying. 8/10