The Fellowship Of The Ring was a terrific movie, and like many, I eagerly anticipated the release of its sequel, The Two Towers, last Christmas. I was met with a film that was, while very enjoyable, not quite as good as its predecessor. With no small amount of trepidation, I awaited The Return Of The King, the final installment in the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, hoping that director Peter Jackson would end on a high note. What I got was a terrific film, epic in just about every way and very moving.
The Return Of The King picks up right where Towers left off, with the treacherous Gollum (Andy Serkis) leading Hobbits Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) – and the Ring of Power – to Mount Doom, where Frodo must destroy the ring. Wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellan) arrives at the evil Saruman's tower of Isengard to find that the treacherous wizards forces have been destroyed by the Ents (huge, tree-like creatures), thanks in no small part to Hobbits Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd). Gandalf takes Pippin to the city of Minas Tirith, where he fends off the inexhaustible armies of the evil Sauron.
At the same time, elven archer Legolas (Orlando Bloom), dwarf Gimli (Johns Rhys-Davies) and future king Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) are helping to organize the forces of man in the hopes of surprising Sauron's armies. Aragorn himself must decide whether to love the human Eowyn (butt-kicking Miranda Otto) or the elven princess Arwen (Liv Tyler).
And all the while, Sam and Frodo get closer and closer to Mount Doom.
There are epic battles, huge setpieces, extravagant costumes, and the stirring orations that fans of the series have become accustomed too. The stunt-work and cinematography has never been better, and one of the most enjoyable moments in the film is when the nimble elf Legolas single-handedly dismantles an entire Oliphant (huge, elephant-esque creatures that are stories tall with sharp barbs strung between their tusks for goring people).
The actors are all terrific, but none really stand out spectacularly, an ode to director Jackson's impressive ability to maintain the film as a true ensemble piece. It is Hobbit Sean Astin who shows the most improvement. Loyal, stout, and very tragic at times, his Sam is the true emotional backbone of the entire trilogy, and only now does the audience see this.
Author J.R.R. Tolkien would be proud of the trilogy Jackson has created for him. After all, the British born author wrote the Lord Of The Rings series with careful attention to detail, compiling hundreds of pages of appendixes that gave background story, writing two full length novels to give a history of Middle-Earth (The Hobbit and The Silmarillon), and even creating a whole language from scratch. Jackson was equally attentive to detail, compiling 12.5 million links of chain mail, some thousands of hand crafted weapons, 90,000 costumes, and 58 miniature sets.
Yet, in a movie that seems so enraptured with its male characters, the best moment in the film is given to the willowy warrior Eowyn. After the Witch-king Ring Wraith declares that no man can kill him, Eowyan chops the head off of his humongous flying dragon, proudly proclaims "I am no man," and proceeds to drive her sword through the bad guy's face. The only thing that would have made this film better was if we had gotten to see Eowyn whup Sauron's orc-loving butt in the end of the film.
The Return Of The King is rated "PG-13" for epic violence and bloody dismemberment.
John Visclosky. John Visclosky is, suffice it to say, "hardly the sharpest intellectual tool in the shed," which is why he has stupidly chosen to here address himself in the third person. He's a mellow sort of guy who enjoys movies and sharing his feelings and innermost … More »
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