Best Movie in a long time

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2003)

This was amazing. I'm trying to put it into words, here, and it's hard, so forgive me for excess adjectives.
First of all, the visuals. The FX were great. Very smooth, very impressive, very realistic. Fantastic job there. The location was so amazing. One shot of riders across a field, with mountains in the distance... so amazing. The visuals alone were enough to make you breathless at times.
The relationships between all the characters were so real. Even with such a huge cast, everyone still had their own, very definite character, and very clear relationships with everyone else. It was all subtle, yet understood, with an artistry that is rare, especially in big blockbusters like this one.
The directing is superb, and while watching it, you are completely drawn in, you realize later that it's almost like a very long, action packed music video. Lots of gorgeous montages that are set to music, and despite little dialogue through these scenes, so much information is conveyed you don't notice the lack of dialogue. What speach there is is direct, to the point, witty, and important. Exchanges between Logolas and Gimli are always funny, and touching, tear-jerking, or just cute between Merry and Pippin, or Sam and Frodo. Legolas and Aragorn have a charged friendship, very powerful, and Ian McKellan's Gandalf is powerful, as always.
If you were to see one movie all year, this would be it. If you were to see one movie your whole life, this would be it. Far from the Matrix's conclusional let-down, this was the best conclusion to a trilogy ever. Leaving you both victorious and grieving, satisfied and screaming, "NOOO!" at the same time, it's the best seven bucks I've spent possibly ever (soon to be fourteen, then twenty-one, then...). See it. Laugh. Cry. Shout. Rage. Find something deeper. This movie is just... you have to see it to worship it.