Everything that has a beginning…Must have an end. Man, what a way to end.
The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy is meant to be seen as a whole. It is the epic journey of men, hobbits, elves, dwarves and the rest of Middle Earth’s creatures and cultures waging the ultimate fight of good against evil. But “The Return of the King” stands apart from 2001’s “Fellowship of the Ring” and 2002’s “Two Towers.”
It is a fantasy. That is what we love about it. We sit down and for three-plus hours we are whisked away to Middle Earth, to a time of kings and queens, where disputes were settled by the sword and not by the guided missle.
Yes, there are amazing battle scenes in this film. I found myself getting chills at many times throughout them. But this film proves that there is so much more to the story of Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli… And who can forget Gandalf.
There are a number of different benchmarks by which to measure a film’s greatness. The best, in my eyes, is the number of spine-tinglingly, goosebump-inducing, verge-of-tears moments it has. Return of the King has them in spades.
When I saw the film, the audience was made up of jaded film critics and theater owners, with a mere 50 people in attendance. But spontaneous applause and cheering broke out at least four times and I myself got misty in more than one instance. Director Peter Jackson definitely knew where Tolkien wanted emotions to come into play.
Not that Jackson added things that rivaled the genius of Tolkien, but he went through the book with a highlighter and streamlined the epic to clarify emotions created in the book. “Return” has a brilliant way of contrasting innocence and beauty with overt power and truly ugly acts. The theme is set up with a beautiful documentation of Smeagol’s brutal journey from a former hobbit to becoming the vile creature Gollum.
But unlike other movies that house awful brutality, Return contextualizes it in a way that makes it in no way gratuitous. It is hard not to compare Return with “The Matrix Revolutions” or even “Kill Bill”. All three films are loaded with battles, heroes and darkness, but Return gives the heroes something real to fight for: friendship, family and loyalty against the power hungry elite who corner the market on overt and covert control.
One of the best aspects of the film is the time and importance spent on some of the lesser characters in the previous films. Especially Pippin and Merry. They come into their own in this film. Pippin actually gets to play the part of Frodo in a weird and twisted way. And Merry “steps in” on one of Aragorn’s women, Eowyn.
And in true LOTR fashion, the battle scenes are crazy. You will not recognize them from the previous films, however. They are not as built up; you are almost thrown into the middle of them without even realizing it. There are new bad guys and new good guys. It is a feast for the eyes.
But the ultimate focus in this film is friendship. The title of the film is misleading, since very little is focused on Aragorn’s rise to be the new king. The film plays more on the fellowship of the nine main characters and how even the fires of Mount Doom and the “unkillable” Witch King will keep them from playing out their story.
To have the motif of friendship threading through a movie that basically determines the fate of the world as the characters know it is no easy task. Sure, there are some of the cheesy lines that make you smirk. But while you watch the movie and see that in times of peril, these characters put their friends first, and by admiring these characters we learn a lesson. Thus, it is true; we can all learn a thing or two even from a kid’s book.
So how do I bring this all together? The film is amazing. Even if you haven’t read the books, even more so if you haven’t read the books. You will be amazed by the settings. It’s practically living fiction. You will want to visit New Zealand after seeing Return. Some of the scenery is absolutely breathtaking.
You will cheer for Sam and Frodo, but you will grieve with them also. You will feel like one of the nine. You will feel like you are part of the story. To end my rant, I offer a quote from the film that basically sums up the movie. Enjoy the film, it comes out Dec. 17.
“I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails. When we forsake our friends and break old bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. This day, we fight!”
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