Movie Reviews

The first Lord of the Rings film was a truly amazing experience. Not knowing very much at all about Tolkein's books, I wasn't sure what to expect when I bought my ticket for The Fellowship of the Ring. Three hours later, though, I knew that I had seen something pretty incredible, and I couldn't wait to see more. I was also impressed by The Two Towers, though it didn't have quite the same impact that Fellowship did.

Now we finally have The Return of the King. I had to control my expectations before going to the theatre, for fear that I might build them up to a point where the only possible outcome would be disappointment. Thankfully, I was not at all disappointed, and I think The Return of the King is a worthy crowning achievement for the series.

I'll not bother with a plot summary here, namely because that would first involve summarizing the previous two films. Suffice it to say that The Return of the King had everything I could've hoped for in a fantasy epic, and more. There is some very real drama here, as characters we've come to care about in the past two films grow and change. There's just the right amount of humour to keep the relatively 'dark' story from being overpowering. The special effects are amazing (a character named Shelob is one of the most amazing CGI-animated characters I've seen -- next to Rings' own Gollum). And finally, there are two major battle scenes on a scale that has never before been shown on film, and they are utterly amazing.

My only complaint seems to be one that others are also expressing -- that is, the ending seems to drag on a little lethargically. I can understand that with the large number of important characters involved it was important to spend time establishing the end of their story-arcs, but the entire audience I was with groaned when, for something like the fourth time in a row, the screen faded to black as if the film was ending, only to have it fade in on another character's final appearance.

Now that all of the Lord of the Rings films have been released, it seems appropriate to step back and think about all three of them as the 'singular' epic that they're supposed to be. Despite a slightly smaller degree of enthusiasm for the middle section, I think that the nine-hour-plus film that is Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest achievements in the history of film.