And so all good things come to an end. For three years in a row, Peter Jackson has banished our winter blues with the individual instalments of his Tolkien trilogy, effectively shifting the focus of our cinematic excitement from the summer months to the end of the year. But now that his epic has been unveiled in its entirety, what will be the lasting effects of his achievement? Well, grand-scale fantasy filmmaking is back on the menu, laying down the gauntlet to George Lucas and Star Wars Episode III. Jackson has also proved that notions of risk and ambition needn't be confined to the low-budget, indie end of the spectrum; nor does California have an exclusive stranglehold on groundbreaking special effects. And then there's the DVD factor. Just as The Lord Of The Rings was upping the stakes in theatres, so too was its DVD release pattern defining what can (and should) be done on disc for major movies. In particular, the four-disc extended editions seem to have affected the director's thinking as to what he can get away with in his theatrical final cut. Hence the public grumbles from Christopher Lee about the non-appearance of Saruman in this final instalment. While it might have been fair to grant Lee a curtain call, Jackson quite rightly realises that it is Sauron, not Saruman, whose fiery eye encompasses all the narrative strands of the climax. The Return Of The King mark…

Too much CGI, redundancy, clichés and drawn out “looks of love” for my tastes. RELEASED 2003 and directed by Peter Jackson, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” adapts the third part of JRR Tolkien’s popular fantasy trilogy about adventures on Middle-Earth: Frodo (Elijah Wood), Sam (Sean Astin) and Gollum (Andy Serkis) continue to try to make their way to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring. Meanwhile Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas the Elf (Orlando Bloom), Gimli the Dwarf (John Rhys-Davies), Gandalf the wizard (Ian McKellen), King Theoden (Bernard Hill) and Faramir (David Wenham) join forces to fight Sauron's army at the stone city of Minas Tirith and, later, draw the forces of Modor out as a distraction for Frodo to accomplish his goal. Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan are on hand as Hobbits Pippin and Merry. While I’m a casual fantasy/adventure fan and have read numerous books of the genre (e.g. Conan, Tarzan, Gor, etc.), I’ve never read Tokien, likely because I’m not into Hobbits, Elves and Dwarfs. After viewing the three movies, The Lord of the Rings strikes me as a mixture of Robin Hood, Conan and The Wizard of Oz, which all possibly influenced Tolkien’s writing of the Rings trilogy in 1937-1949. So, if you think a meshing of “Conan the Barbarian” (1982) and “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” (1991) with “The Wizard of Oz” (1939) sounds good, then you’l…

Great finale to a great trilogy. The action and battle sequences were amazing and even though I've seen this a few times over the years, still thrilling to the end. I didn't even mind the multiple endings as I had in the past, nice each character got their due. **4.75/5**

An outstanding end to the trilogy. I expected a lot from <em>'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'</em> so I am delighted to see it produce on so many levels. I, funnily enough, wouldn't actually say it's necessarily the most perfect execution - what with the plot coincidences and extreme character armour. But that doesn't matter one jot whatsoever, as the story wraps up in arguably the best way - at least to watch - possible. It has so much heart and feeling to it. The story involving the characters of Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and Andy Serkis remained the most interesting to me, I was very satisfied with how it concluded in regards to them. I also enjoyed the bits we got of Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen & Co. All that added to the beautiful look and creation of the film, with the world coming alive splendidly. If I were to nit-pick further, I would say the run time is slightly too long. The pacing is absolutely fine, very good in fact, but I coulda done without a few of the many end scenes - a lot of which are necessary and welcome, but a couple could've been left out to allow the viewer to imagine how the world continued. That's just how I feel mind, I'm sure I'm one of only a few that think that way. Back onto the positives: how about those battle sequences? Astonishingly good. A sensational trilogy, no question about it. I look forward to seeing <em>'The Hobbit…