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| The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) |
Alright, so the obvious stuff first. The visuals and cinematography are once again top-notch. Every shot was wonderful to look at, and the CGI is just as good as the previous film. Gollum, the dragons, the ghosts, the Eye of Sauron, it was all spectacular to look at. The soundtrack is still fire, and you better believe I'm getting the OSTs from all 3 of these movies for my collection. I absolutely love it when there are recurring motifs throughout multiple songs, and this movie has that in spades. The triumphant theme for the Fellowship, the melody that plays whenever Frodo and Sam think of the Shire, it's all just so great, and not enough soundtracks do this.
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| The Eye of Sauron |
The cast is once again phenomenal. Elijah Wood continues to do an amazing job of bringing Frodo's struggles to life, and Frodo's journey in this movie can be downright heart-wrenching at times. Viggo Mortensen is in top form as well, as is Ian McKellan. But, let me just say this now: Samwise Gamgee might just be one of my favourite characters ever put to film. I love this little guy; his dedication, his journey, his sorrows and his joyous moments, Sean Astin does such a great job with all of them, he's just so compelling in this role. I also think that the friendship between Frodo and Sam is one of the greatest friendships in cinema. What was it... "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you!" Such a great line for such a great friendship, and that was one moment among many that almost had me welling up with tears. Pieces of media don't make me cry easily, so that's a big feat.
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| Sean Astin as Samwise Gamgee and Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins |
I think perhaps the best thing this movie does is function as an ending. Oftentimes, if a final chapter to a story is unsatisfactory, the whole package just seems hollow, and this is thankfully not the case here. It was just so goddamn satisfying, and as it was all coming together and peoples' stories were ending, nothing left me wanting more. All of my questions were answered, all of the stories came together, all of the strands reached their ends, and the film even answered some questions I wasn't expecting answers to. I'm glad the film took some time to show us how the journey affected Frodo, as moments like that are the things that make it seem like stories matter, and weren't just another thing that happened in the lives of the characters involved. Nobody who went on this adventure ended it the same person they were when they began, and those are the stories worth telling.
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| Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn |
I feel like I need to address a couple of criticisms this film likes to get and explain why I didn't have a problem with them overall. The first one is that there were so many battles and, really... there weren't. There was the one big battle and then a couple of little ones. That was it. Besides, they're entertaining, so who cares? The other criticism people have is that the film ends several times, and while I think the editing doesn't quite help with that, again, I like that it showed how the journey affected people. I like seeing what happened to Aragorn, I like seeing Bilbo again, I like Frodo's resolution, and I especially like ending things at the Shire, which is a nice bookend to the whole trilogy. If the film ended as soon as everyone was reunited, it wouldn't have felt complete. This way, it does. Let me put it this way: the proper ending to this film actually made me cry. I mentioned before how hard a film has to work just to get me to well up, so the fact that actual tears were shed here means that they ended it on exactly the right note.
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| Ian McKellan as Gandalf the White |
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) is the perfect ending to this trilogy of movies. Is it better than The Two Towers? I'm not sure yet, but I feel confident in calling it one of my favourite films ever made. 10/10.
Tomorrow: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
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