A mediocre film that everyone feels obliged to love

Rating: 6/10 (24 December 2003)

For some reason people fell compelled to love ROTK, even despite all its shortcomings. After making the Purist Edit of The Two Towers (check eDonkey2000 network for it) I have no such qualms. Return of the King is mediocre filmmaking at most. Yes, it does have excellent source material and it does have some expensive (but not impressive) CGI. But almost everything else that the film is comprised of is shoddy. Script is a butchering of a book, created by three self-assured writers who think they can do a better job than JRRT (regardless of the target medium). Acting is poor with a few exceptions. Music is either a rehash of TTT themes, or is extremely lame. Directing and editing are absolutely pathetic, overall and in minor details. Even make-up is not on-par with FOTR and TTT, reusing some mutant from Total Recall for an orc chieftain instead of lifelike Moria orcs and Uruk-Hai in FOTR and Mordor and Isengard orcs in TTT. Special effects are everywhere, but the quality is truly pathetic. Disneyesque phantoms, unbelievable miniatures (with blatantly obvious jumps from set filming to miniature and back several times), completely lame collapses of Minas Tirith's buildings hit by catapults (note to PJ: your are not filming an attack on flimsy movie sets, you are filming an attack on a mighty Gondor fortress).
The film clumsily borrows from Star Wars, Terminator, Aliens, etc., instead of creating its own visual style like it was done in FOTR. Even more blatant are the rip-offs from TTT - countless scenes, dialogs and whole episodes look like they have been taken straight from TTT with only a little modification (like superimposing the same footage on a different background - compare the HD and MT Rohirrim attacks, Gimli and horn vs. Pippin and beacons, etc., etc.). There are many extremely cheap and overused shots, the beacon sequence is crap (there is no sense of direction, it is unrealistic). There are simply to many faults in this movie to list them here, on average I flinched about once per minute, witnessing yet another wild story change, lame dialog or poor performance.
There are some good parts, but they are few and far between. If you are a sheep or have other reasons to believe that PJ is god and his movies are gospel, watch the film suppressing your disgust. Otherwise don't expect much from it, a few laughs at the ridiculousness of the movie at most. If you love the books and don't enjoy pointless and stupid plot (and character) changes, avoid this one. Watch FOTR EE again instead.