The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

I feel so much better now. I think I've been holding my breath for 3 years . I had huge expectations walking into this film and now I can let all that stress go because it was wonderful. The film is paced the same way as the first two, fairly slowly, but with bursts of exciting images that make you want to shout from the rooftops. In particular, I loved the lighting of the signals from mountaintop to mountaintop. The images themselves make a lump grow in your throat, but better than that was the reaction from Aragorn (played much more aptly than in the first two films, although he's still not adept at exposition, by Viggo Mortensen). There are plenty of opportunities to have your funny bone tickled, even so far into the film as the orcs who capture Frodo. There are also opportunities for surprise. The city where the King of the Nazguls resides shocked the heck out of me, and I think others in the audience. Orlando Bloom as Legolas once again gets the best stunt (although I didn't like this one as much as the one in the second film). Each major character learns and grows throughout the film, and the most eye-opening of these was Samwise Gamgee. Jackson should be counting his lucky stars that he cast Sean Astin in that role. And the ending is quite moving. I am not ashamed to say that tears were coursing down my cheeks. You'd think I wouldn't have been so moved knowing what the ending would be but it was so nice to see it enacted well. And, dare I say, correctly. A marathon of all three films back to back was shown in NYC (when they do this in Ann Arbor I'll be one of the first there). One fan, when asked why she was there, put down her book (do you have to ask which book?) and answered that she was there in tribute to Peter Jackson, "a fan who understood." In the final analysis, the films show that he cared about what he was making. And that's what really counts.

year: 2003
length: 201 min. theatrical release / 251 min. extended release
rating: 4.0
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0167260/combined