Lets cut to the chase - how good is it? Extraordinary. Nothing less does justice to the sheer spectacle, excitement and emotional resonance of Return of the King, the final and finest of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. At the best of times trilogies can be strange beasts, frequently burning brightly in their early stages but flattering to deceive towards their over hyped finales (yes The Matrix, that means you). However, if anything Jackson has managed to up the ante from a running start with The Fellowship of the Ring and climaxes with an extraordinary cinematic accomplishment.
The Return of the King opens with a snappy prologue documenting how a hobbit called Smeagol was horribly corrupted by the Ring becoming Gollum before reacquainting us with the progress of Sam and Frodo, almost broken by their mission to bring the One Ring to Mordor. Elsewhere, Sauron's forces are to lay siege to Minas Tirth, the capital of Gondor, and while the kingdom is in danger of falling to the marauding orcs, Aragorn must pursue his destiny and become king. Of course, this is a hopelessly inadequate summarisation of events in Return of the King but Jackson handles the plentiful action with considerable skill - Frodo's encounter with a huge spider had me almost hyperventilating with excitement, while the battle sequences make the Helm's Deep section of The Two Towers look like a stroll in the park. The formidable running time (201 minutes) never becomes a chore; Jackson expertly zips between narrative strands to keep the viewer gripped, fashioning a degree of tension which barely slackens. The only quibble is that after the sheer exhilaration of the previous three hours, the last twenty minutes feel a mite anti-climatic. The ending feels a little dragged out and a little despondent, but when that's about the harshest criticism that can be levelled at a picture, you know it's something really special. A must see.
