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

This review is not only for the last part, but for the whole trilogy. I am surprised, that no one has written about it. This trilogy is by far the best I have ever seen. I was a little bit concerned about the ending, whether it would live up to the expectation of the series so far or not. But unlike its counterpart, the Matrix Trilogy (only trilogy released in the same era, which was as popular as LOTR), its ending was, what we can call as 'the King's ending'. Whereas ending of Matrix Trilogy was quite shitty and unexpected, one and only flaw in that trilogy.

For the Tolkien fans, this trilogy stays quite close to the book, although it is one of the few movie series, which is far better than the books, they are based on. Normally the books are way better than their movie counterpart (for eg - Harry Potter series, Dan Brown sagas, and the list go on and on).

I would be a fool to discuss on special effects and cinematography, of an epic series like this. For a laymen like me, it was out of the world. Soundtrack by Howard Shore was one of the best I have ever heard. Being a fan of Hans Zimmer, I never expected anyone to be better than him in Hollywood. But Howard has set his bar so high, that even Zimmer is copying his soundtrack in his latest flick Man of Steel. If you will listen closely, the tune played in Man of Steel teaser trailer is exactly the same as the last minute of The Bridge of Khazad Dum.

Dialogues in this movie are like poetry. It gives a feel, that we are reading some Shakespearean piece of work. Performances all around were good, but Sean Astin as Sam and Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn really dominated the film. Elijah Wood seemed to be stuck with the same terrified expression on his face through most of the movie, (Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter has tried that same expression too, and they both sucked). Ian McKellen, the ever-wise white wizard, was perfect for the role of Gandalf. Orlando Bloom, favorite of young teenage girls everywhere, had some great action sequences (which got cheers from the above mentioned girls), but his acting wasn't much tested by this film. John Rhys-Davies continued with Gimli's joking performance. He was the only comic relief in this otherwise serious movie.

Length of both this trilogy and 'my review' is far more than average. Peter Jackson has a knack of explaining and detailing every little thing, as a result, the size of his movies easily exceeds 3 hour barrier, which we rarely see in Hollywood. Personally, I also think that, if the content is good, then we should not condense the material, otherwise the film loses its charm, as in the case of Harry Potter series. I would suggest everyone to continuously watch all three parts, without break, for 12 hours, and you will find yourself, teleported into the magnificent world of LOTR.