Movie Review: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The long-awaited final third of the Lord of the Rings trilogy opened on December 17 to a record-breaking box office. Current estimates suggest the film grossed $125.1 domestically for its five-day opening, and almost a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide (and that's without major markets like Japan and Australia where it has yet to debut). That's a lot of money, and it would be a rare film that would be worthy of dollar figures like that. It's a great pleasure to say that Return of the King is worth every nickel.

In the first film - The Fellowship of the Ring - we're introduced to hobbits, elves, dwarves, men, and wizards who hope to forestall the forces of evil. In second film - The Two Towers - the first battles are fought, all of which will collectively determine the fate of the entire world. And in the third film - Return of the King - the war reaches its peak and Middle Earth inhabitants of all species fight and die to preserve their way of life against the predations of the evil wizard, Saruman.

Just as the second film opened with only moments having passed since the closing scenes of the first, so does the third film open just after the end of the second. Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) are toiling into the evil lands of Mordor, led by the duplicitous Gollum (or Smeagol who, we now know, was once very much like the hobbits we love until the one ring sucked everything that was decent out of him). The elves are on their way out of Middle Earth, never to return. But at the last minute, the beautiful elven princess, Arwen (Liv T yler) can't leave her home or her one true love. As she wonders and worries, the object of her thoughts - Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) - is celebrating one battle while planning the next.

The wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is also making plans, but everything is accelerated when Pippin (Billy Boyd) becomes too curious for his own good. Gandalf is forced to take Pippin on the run to Gondor, leaving with King Theoden (Bernard Hill) his hopes that the men of Rohan will come to the aid of Gondor when the capital city of Minas Tirith becomes the scene of what all believe will be the final battle to determine under whose rule Middle Earth will fall. When Gandalf and Pippin arrive at Gondor, however, the fate of the city is even nearer than he suspected in the hands of a steward who has lost all of his will to survive after the untimely death of his eldest son. Though his younger son, Faramir (David Wenham), does his best for his father, the elder man cares for nothing but his dead son and lost dreams. And when he must be ready to fight, there's some question he'll be able to summon the energy to bother.

Meanwhile, the elven prince Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and the erascible dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) remain firm allies of Aragorn, and they will follow wherever he leads no matter how difficult the trail. King Theoden's daughter, Eowyn (Miranda Otto) quietly loves Aragorn herself, but she follows the army primarily because of her love and loyalty to her father. Along with Merry (Dominic Monaghan), she determines to offer whatever aid in the fight she can. Largely without hope, the army is never-the-less determined to fight in the hopes that any time they can give Frodo might help him in the ultimate quest to destroy the evil ring. But Frodo is having grave difficulties of his own, above and beyond any effort to sneak past an army of Orcs to reach the slopes of Mount Doom. The ring doesn't want to be destroyed, and it's exerting its considerable fell influence on Frodo to make sure he does no such thing.

Whew! Yes, there are a lot of major characters and even more major plot developments. That's why the movie is three and a half hours long and still must skip some things and give short shrift to others. Because there are so many characters and the plot is so incredibly involved, I would strongly suggest that there's little point in seeing Return of the King, even as good as it is, without seeing Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers first (both are available for rental; both are also truly fantastic movies).

The Return of the King is well written, and positively astonishing in cinemetography and set decoration. The effects are, once again superb, and the model work (check out Minas Tirith!) will take your breath away. The cast has become the characters they play, and all of us are the richer for it in that they've given real life, with all its warts and glory, to some of literature's most fantastic creations. And Director and co-writer Peter Jackson deserves every award anyone can think of for bringing the Lord of the Rings series to the big screen. It was something many people, including me, didn't think could be done. Certainly, I never believed it could be done while holding true to J.R.R. Tolkien's considerably complex vision. Jackson not only did it, but he did it brilliantly and with a love for the story that glows from every frame.

I didn't review The Fellowship of the Ring, but my review of The Two Towers garnered it a relatively rare three and a half stars. I'm going to give Return of the King a full four stars because it deserves them. And to the series as a whole, I also give a solid four out of four stars. Frankly, if my rating system went higher, I'd give the trilogy even more. It's incredibly rare in Hollywood that a series of movies can maintain its high quality. The first Star Wars trilogy came close. The Terminator trilogy gave it a good try. The Indiana Jones series may have actually succeeded. But The Lord of the Rings leaves them all in the dust. Separately and collectively, The Lord of the Rings is nothing short of amazing.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is rated PG13. There's no rough language and no nudity, but there is a good deal of fantasy violence much of which is relatively graphic, and there is certainly some razor's edge suspense in a number of scenes (I've read the books and I knew well what would happen, yet I was on the edge of my seat more than once). Of course, it bears repeating that the plot is also extremely complex. I don't see a problem with a 13 year-old seeing the movie and, in fact, have a friend with a 13 year-old son who has already seen the third movie three times (yes, in just one weekend). But it seems to me to be fairly difficult to follow for the younger kids, and so I'd keep the series to kids 14 and up, with exceptions made for the particularly bright and creative younger child. For everyone else, if you want to see a movie that deserves to win best film and best director Oscars™ in 2004, this is the film I'd suggest.