Peter Jackson respects his audience and characters.

Rating: 10/10 (22 December 2003)

And I can't think of a higher complement than that. One thing I noticed near the end of this, and that's nobody in this movie, including Merry and Pippen, kills people "accidentally." There's no Jar-Jar Binks moments where a character accidentally slips on a rock, which tumbles down and kills 50 Orcs or some such nonsense. At no point is Jackson insulting us, or insulting his characters (ok, Gimli has a couple of these moments in Two Towers, but he still ended up killing people anyway.)
Overall, this trilogy stands as the greatest of all time. And the significance of each battle in the individual movies becomes greater every time - the skirmish by the river in Fellowship gives way to the greater battle in Helm's Deep to the monstrous, colossal battle of Miris Tirith. It truly relates how the world of men is slowly enveloped in this task from an initial small group of people trying to change the world to the massive acknowledgement that the world will end if people do not unite.

There's so many great individual moments, too - just about every character gets one, as well: (SPOILERS)
--Pippen's song, while the mad steward sends his son on a suicide mission, which seems lifted from King Lear more than anything else.
--Gandalf's ride to Minas Tirith
--Gollum speaking to the water
--"I'm glad I'm here with you at the end of all things, Sam."
--Aragorn's one line, "For Frodo."
--King Theoden's repeat of "I know your face" to Eowyn.
And the extended coda really does it justice; this is nothing to complain about, especially when modern action movies usually end the film right after the adversary's head has been cut off and finishes rolling down a hill. Considering that this is a 9 1/2 hour epic (and more like 11 hours when considering longer versions), then there's nothing wrong with twenty minutes of endings.

It's fantastic.