The solid ending to a good trilogy

Rating: 6/10 (1 December 2014)

"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King", which sounds like a Robin Hood reference, is the final chapter to Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings"-series. It stars most of the cast from the two previous films and also the crew does not look that much different. What does look different is the awards output. While the first was really successful with the Academy and the second moderately, this one won 11 Oscars, all categories where it was nominated, but missed out on one category to be the alone record holder. This was maybe the cinematography category, where it wasn't even nominated surprisingly. Still, the Best Picture win and Director for Jackson should make up for it.
The film features lots of Gollum again too. Actually, it starts with Smeagol back when he was a human. Not much later, we see the killing of Saruman, something we may have expected to be one of the final moments, but this happens so that we see Sauron as the true antagonist of this film and the whole franchise. I found it a bit surprising as Saruman was definitely the main villain in the first two films, the first more than the second. Another thing I liked was the water reflection scene with Gollum/Smeagol. Nicely done here how his good side talks to his evil side. The film's central point is Minas Tirith, but I wasn't too thrilled by that. Scenes like Pippin's possible death with that fireball that he could not put away were more interesting and spectacular than the fight sequences. The part about Boromir's father and the fight for paternal love maybe helped the movie with its award ambitions as the topic is still relevant today, even if in a different manner.
Other than that, the arguing between Sam and Gollum continues from the second movie. I just wonder why Sam would lay down so close to the abyss with Gollum around. Anyway, the scene where Frodo sends Sam away is one of the emotional highlights from the trilogy. Pretty sad. In addition to that, Frodo (before he meets the spider) screams Smeagol a couple times, then whispers Sam and realizes who his real friend is. The spider scene is really one of the most intense from all three movies. What a disgusting creature and a perfect moment to pick as it proves Gollum has been evil all the time and even a main antagonist to the two courageous Hobbits at the end. Later on, Sam appears to free Frodo from the Orc headquarter and I wondered a bit why Sam showed the ring to Frodo first. I'd have thought just get out of there guys and not stay there a second longer than you have to.
In addition, a couple fathers are dying, good ones and bad ones, and the storyline with Miranda Otto's character is continued. I never found that particularly interesting though and the final chapter doesn't change that. I actually could have done without it in its entirety. Then also the film would not have dragged on some occasions.
Finally we get a firework of lava as closure and a sequence which seemed more like a dream (where I thought something bad was about to happen), but it was real, including a final beautiful moment between Sam and Frodo. Astin was the MVP from the final film for me, maybe even the trilogy. If McKellen got an Oscar nomination for the Fellowship, Astin at least would have deserved one too here. Sadly he did not get any, but it was refreshing to see how he stole the films from all these established Hollywood actors being almost a no-name when the trilogy started.
It would also have been a nice ending if the film had ended when they all bowed down to the four Hobbits, but it went on for a bit afterward. We find out that the journey started 13 months ago and what happened to Bilbo in the meantime, pretty sad actually. The ending looked almost as if there would be a Sam sequel, but actually we got a Bilbo prequel in these last three years. Annie Lennox' song with the closing credits also won an Oscar for the Eurythmics singer (Enya was nominated two movies earlier) and while I thought it was okay, I believe she has done some better work in her career.
All in all, I recommend watching this film/trilogy. I would not call it epic as many do, but it can provide for some nice entertainment and over eleven fantastic hours of film if you are into fantasy movies.