Review 12: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

To quote Roger Ebert: "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a crowning achivement, such a visonary of purse spectacle that it

Based on the third volume The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien. As Sauron launches the final stages of his conquest of Middle-Earth, Gandalf the Wizard (Ian McKellen), and Theoden (Bernard Hill) King of Rohan rally their forces to help defend Gondor's capital Minas Tirith from the looming threat. Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) finally claims the throne of Gondor and summons an army of ghosts to help him defeat Sauron.
Ultimately, even with full strength of arms, they realise they cannot win; so it comes down to the Hobbits, Frodo and Sam, to bear the burden of the Ring and deal with the treachery of Gollum. After a long journey they finally arrive in the dangerous lands of Mordor, seeking to destroy the One Ring in the place it was created, the volcanic fires of Mount Doom.

The plot is an amazing mix of emotional depth and just pure spectacle from start to finish. It gathers all the strands from its tow predorcessors and guides them towards a simply breathtaking battle
 
Peter Jackson's directing is unobtrusive, the cinematography is beautiful and captures the beauty of the Middle Earth as well as the epic scope suitable for this type of film, the production design is breathtaking, the special effects are incredible, the score by Howard Shore is... incredible and also the best of the series, the action/battle scenes are amazing, well choreographed and well put together, the costumes are wonderful, the makeup is rich, the sound effects are solid, the scenery is a work of art and the ending was so touching.

The acting is sensational, I don't think I've seen better acting in an epic film, this along with Star Wars and Avatar possibly feature the best acting in an epic film and it's taken me all this time to recognise it but I don't think there was a central performance because there were so many storylines in every movie and each focused on their own set of characters and there was an incredible cast, Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Bean, Dominic Monaghan, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, John Rhys-Davies,
Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Ian Holm, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett, John Noble, Karl Urban, Miranda Otto, David Wenham, Bernard Hill, Andy Serkis, Christopher Lee. The whole cast was wonderful.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the perfect end to a near perfect trilogy, 5/5.

The Anonymous Critic

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