Review of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) by Mike E — 22 Sep 2013

Providing fans with the emotional last chapters of their heroes' stories - iced over with perhaps the most impressive battle sequences ever put to film - Peter Jackson does no more than deliver the epic masterpiece that was expected of him.

Fair enough, the continuous endings are a little annoying after a while. But in my opinion, they were deftly handled and sealed the movie perfectly. The idiots that complain about the ending sequences are probably the same idiots that complain about Harry Potter doing the direct opposite.

The movie is very long, but anything shorter would have been a crime. Although just like the other movies, it isn't entirely without its flaws. Again, Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, just get a little too far-fetched in their warrior perfections.

I also think the whole story with Merry becoming a soldier was all but wasted, serving little importance to what the rest of the script projected, and so was basically an unnecessary add-on, just to remind us that he still existed.

Conversely, however, I really like the emphasis the film makes on Pippin and Galdalf's friendship, and although the drama-triangle between Frodo, Sam, and Gollum, does have its low points in forced, comedic distractions, their final plight with the giant spider and Sam's heroic return is incredibly satisfying.

Basically, there's too many good and bad points to list here, so I won't bother trying. It basically comes down to whether you're a fan of the series. If you are, then 'Return Of The King' is yet another fantastic movie, based on a fantastic book, and since these films never sacrificed character and spirit for sheer, ground-breaking spectacle, one can easily invest themselves into its grand-scale story of good triumphing over evil, and the enduring quality of friendship, so as to ignore its minor downfalls, and love it for the brilliance it really is.