Movie Review

The Lord of the Rings The Return of the King

by m maldonado

And I thought the first movie was good.
In late December of last year, the final installment of Peter Jackson's cinematic rendition of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was released. This movie, the third and the last, was titled "The Return of the King," and closes up the story of Frodo Baggins and his trials and tribulations with the One Ring.
This bit of closure plays out over three and a half hours' worth of film, during which a viewer will be presented with some of the most stunning visual and emotional media in cinema history. From the very beginning (involving Smeagol and Theagol), to the very end (a very, very, very long end), it is a most stunning achievement.
The beginning of this movie, much like the beginning of The Two Towers, is meant to thrust you right back into Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-Earth. However, it does it differently, opting not for recycled footage and an amazing struggle for survival. Instead, the viewer is slowly but surely eased back in by the story of Theagol's discovery of the Ring in a river. When his companion, Smeagol, sees the Ring, he immediately asks for it. When Theagol refuses, he demands it. When he refuses yet again, the angry Smeagol chokes him to death, and we are once again reminded of the hold the Ring can have on a person, and what it can make them do. It was a different kind of introduction, but it was beautiful in its own right.
After this bit of violence, we see Smeagol as his sanity and health degrade with the Ring in his possession. This is his slow transformation from river-hobbit Smeagol to the scrawny, blanched Gollum we are most familiar with. It, too, is startlingly effective.
With the audience firmly entrenched in the world once more, the movie begins where The Two Towers left off--at Isengard, the home of Saruman the White, which has been ravished by the angry tree-herders known as Ents, and is now desperately flooded. From here the movie progresses back into the plight of Frodo and Sam, who are hiking all over Mordor, trying to get to Mount Doom, where they must go to destroy the One Ring.
One thing that truly stands out about all three movies, but seems to especially work in Return of the King, is the introduction of the numerous characters populating the world. In all the movies, characters are given clean entrances and exits; no one ever just drops out of sight for no reason, never to be seen again. If a character disappears from the plot, there is good reason. It just has to be looked for (for instance, Saruman and Wormtongue do not show up in the third movie. Why? Because their tale was told in The Two Towers, and it ends there. At least, it does in the theatrical version; the extended edition of Return of the King is purported to contain scenes involving both characters).
I suppose someone reading this will be interested in the action in the movie. Well, there's plenty to talk about, so let's get to it.
The action in the movie is, in short terms, awesome. In long terms, it is amazingly realistic, even though the majority of it was almost certainly computer generated. This includes everything from hordes of evil Uruk-Hai scaling the walls of the white city of Minas Tirith to massive Oliphaunts (violent and dangerous-looking relatives of the elephant) charging the warriors of Gondor head-on, their many tusks poised to strike. All that, and a great deal more (including Legolas taking down a whole Oliphaunt all on his lonesome).
One of the prime complaints made by people, especially in-theater, is the great length of the ending. Director/co-screenplay writer Peter Jackson seems to have decided that it would be best if all the many story threads were closed at the end of this movie. Which is why there is a multitude of mini-endings, little character moments that close their personal stories up completely. They may seem to drag on and on, but I know that some viewers prefer being given all the information over being left in the dark about this thing and that thing.
The movie far exceeded the expectations of fans the world 'round. It has earned all the fame and glory it has been given, and more.

Rating: A+ (to the power of ten)