Quite a fabulous ending...with only one flaw

Rating: 10/10 (17 December 2003)

Lay your fears to rest. Peter Jackson and friends have not stumbled on the third and final Lord of the Rings movie. The Return of the Kings holds to the same standards as the first two movies and extremely satisfying. There's a big difference between making a trilogy where the entire story has already been written, and one where sequel's are made to capitalize on a successful film. (See Matrix, Batman, and Star Wars for examples.) In fact, the only real flaws are one's of omission. Weighing in at three hours and thirty minutes, it's still not long enough to complete Tolkien's story. So, it glosses over quite a few things in the interest of finishing. While die hard fans, including myself, will have to hope that Peter Jackson puts in these omissions in the extended DVD version, everyone can relish what did make it to the screen.
The Return of the King is the easiest of the three movies to understand for Tolkien neophytes, with all of the exposition and explanations clear and well paced. The battle scenes are fabulous and not so onerous as Helm's Deep in The Two Towers. Shelob, Frodo's burden, Minas Tirith, the Mumakil, Eowyn's confrontation with the Witch King are phenomenally well done. Legolas fans won't be disappointed, and Gimli gets to utter the movie's funniest line.
The ending suffers a bit with multiple denouements but without the book's second climax. But despite this, the audience cheered, cried, and applauded at the end. When I first read the Lord of the Rings, more than twenty years ago, I thought how great it would be to see this in a movie, but then I thought what a phenomenally bad movie it would be, because the story line was too complex; no movie company would let it be the proper length; and how do you portray the evil whose greatest threat is his oppressive presence? And on top of that, the special effects would never do it justice. Well, I have to take my hat of to Peter Jackson and New Line, as well as everyone else who worked on the project. They truly have accomplished the impossible, adapting The Lord of the Rings to three phenomenal movies which are true to the novels and never cheesy in that Sword and Sorceror kind of way. Thank you.