Completes the trilogy in fine style

Rating: 10/10 (10 December 2017)

The fact that this film has over 3000 reviews speaks volumes, and it is hard to know what to add that might not already have been said.
Unlike at the time of release, we now have the luxury of lining up the three parts of the film and watching them through. While this is hard to achieve at one sitting, a "watchathon" with some breaks still does the job as it was meant to be done - with the necessary continuity.
The first thing to note after that is that this is not our world.
While at the very start of "The Hobbit" (the book), JRR Tolkien seems to toy with the suggestion that the people ("men") in his book are like us, while hobbits are small beings that hide away from the likes of us, he clearly drops this concept further on in the same book, let alone in LOTR.
So Tolkien's achievement - and the challenge for Peter Jackson - was to put on screen a whole new world in which we are observers, but not in any even remote sense participants. This is of some relevance, given the detachment needed to see the pure evil of Sauron for what it is, to go along with orcs and others being irredeemable cannon-fodder, and to accept the immortality of elves and the lengthy lifespans of the other species on show here (let alone the presence of a host of other beasts more or less supernatural and otherwise implausible).
This is precisely what Jackson does achieve, and it is a triumph.
And since LOTR is a portrayal of a last stand of "the West", it is somehow fitting and touching that the 3 films are primarily the achievement of a mix of New Zealanders, Australians, Brits and Americans; and it might reasonably be argued that, whatever the cultural future of our world, "the West" (and even perhaps its Anglo-Saxon sub-component) reached some kind of artistic zenith in this simply outstanding epic.
Given that LOTR screenings overlapped with those of (the very British if American-funded) Harry Potter, these were rich times indeed for lovers of lengthy literary sagas entirely incapable of being turned into films and yet somehow being turned into films, even with some aplomb. They were also "rich" in the literal sense, given the unparalleled, if deserved, lucrativeness of both of these genres.
But LOTR still stands a little above even this high-class fray, and most especially on its design side. The presentations of the civilisations and architecture and art and clothing of the Shire, of Rohan, of Gondor, of the Elves, of the Dwarfs and of Mordor are outstanding and indeed near-miraculous (as literally they need to be). The level of detail is just mind-blowing and at times gulp-making in its audacity, love and care.
One sign of the alien-ness of Middle Earth, in the books and now also on film, is the way it defies time-period classification. While The Shire might even look 18th-century, Minas Tirith seems more like Mediaeval times and the Riders of Rohan even somehow late Dark Ages...
Again while Hobbiton would seem familiar (to Britons especially) and has a measure of technological development, a rather Star-Warslike twist (though Middle Earth of course came first!!!) has all remaining technology in the hands of the bad guys and compiled together with magic (either that of Saruman or that of Sauron). This effect from the books also makes it through to the screen...
Tolkien reflected these differences in having Baggins and co. talk in rather everyday language about things like pocket handkerchiefs, umbrellas, hedge-cutting and dishcloths (and even tobacco), while the speech of Galadriel, Elrond, Denethor and so on is far more lofty and high-register. Again the film deals with this, though to the extent that actors occasionally look a little uncomfortable delivering their lines. Frodo-Sam-Gollum interactions (for Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and an ecstatically-good Andy Serkis) are at their best when tinged with grumpiness or humour (references to "fish and chips" most especially), but they come close to indigestible overdose (as well as perhaps a touch of homoeroticism?) when turning to subjects more wistful.
Admittedly, the lack of American accents in both Frodo and Sam is an achievement not equalled in most previous films, though it maybe happens at some cost to the delivery not apparent when native Brit Ian Holm offers his splendid portrayal of the ageing if ring-preserved Uncle Bilbo.
Interestingly, Gandalf (here played memorably by Sir Ian McKellen) bridges these two worlds (as in the books), being a bringer of fireworks from The Shire's point of view, while also being a mighty wizard monarch in the story's later stages. He talks appropriately for both of these worlds!
Minor issues like the above with the lines matter not to the great (and quite regularly tear-inducing) sweep of the tale; and to the joy of seeing many characters like Elrond, Theoden, Denethor, Aragorn, Arwen and Galadriel made convincing on-screen flesh thanks (respectively) to Hugo Weaving, Bernard Hill, John Noble, Viggo Mortensen (special plaudits to him), Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett.
Normally, a galaxy of stars such as this might overwhelm a film, but such is the epic scale of these movies that they represent just tiny parts of a whole presented with such great wisdom against spectacular New Zealand backgrounds.
These locations were the choice of genius, and genius makes its presence felt regularly enough here. Of course, that is the genius of Tolkien, but it is also the genius of Jackson and (immense) team, who never pretended they could convey every element of a story running into thousands of pages, but nevertheless surpass themselves in managing to achieve so very much.
Those lucky enough to have never seen these films are thus advised to do so, whether or not fantasy is normally their kind of thing.