The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

It sounds like faint praise to say that "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," the final installment of Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy, meets expectations, except when you consider how high expectations were after Jackson's first two installments. "The Fellowship of the Ring" rushed through a lot of exposition, but it introduced some stunning images, of unreal dream-beasts and of verdant and sere landscapes, and some astonishing performances, both from regular humans and humans in a lot of makeup. These images and performances only became more potent under the greater stresses of "The Two Towers," in which Jackson also proved that he and his CGI wizards could muster armies for the field of battle as convincingly as they could depict the pallorous schizophrenic Gollum.

With Jackson's visual mastery and his cast's evident passion and intelligence, "LOTR" enthusiasts and regular ol' moviegoers alike were justified in expecting that the world-engulfing battles and harrowing individual struggles that dominate Tolkien's "The Return of the King" would be vividly rendered, rousingly acted and indelibly memorable. And that's just what this film delivers.

In fact, one could even make an argument that parts of Jackson's "Return of the King" have a greater impact than Tolkien's; after all, Tolkien had to contend with the limits of the English language when describing the forces arrayed against Gondor and against the allies at the Black Gate, while Jackson's invented armies simply beggar description. Vast plains fill up with orcs, bristling with spears and armor and rushing at the fortified city like the stampeding draft animals they are. (Orcs fight enthusiastically but without much skill, which is why Legolas the elf and Gimli the dwarf can kill dozens during a battle without getting scratched.) Oliphaunts (like elephants but with more tusks) fitted out with armor and carrying sword-brandishing troops scream into the fray. Cave trolls lumber onto the field of battle and swat humans casually.

But the forces of good have a few skills as well; particularly stirring is the moment when Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Eowyn (Miranda Otto) take down the leader of the Ring-Wraiths, who rides a long serpentine beast and speaks from within a blank hood, or the moment when Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) leads a host of dead warriors swarming over the embattled fort… Well, as noted above, this scene, not to mention the final desperately outnumbered and utterly heroic delaying action just outside the Dark Lands, make an impact language struggles to match. Our actors excel themselves in stirring feats of physical and spiritual fortitude, to provide a smaller scale for contrast to the vastness, and the effect is riveting and glorious.

Of course, language has some advantages as well, which become apparent when following the traveling triangle of ring-obsessed Gollum (Andy Serkis), ring-bearing Frodo (Elijah Wood), and ring-bearer-helping Sam (Sean Astin), as the trio moves the ring into Mordor and to Mount Doom for what Frodo and Sam hope is its eventual destruction and Gollum hopes is its eventual deliverance unto him. (This is a plot reminder, not a plot summary.) Tolkien could spread his descriptions of the forbidding landscape of Mordor across the page, accumulating detail until his readers felt the weight of that evil land as well; he could also return repeatedly to the luster and grip of the One Ring that was forged from all the evil in Middle-Earth, and how resisting these temptations was a great burden for a little hobbit.

Jackson's medium does not allow much for either of these options; he and co-adapters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens can only show landscape so many times, especially with the plot density of this film, and they sure can't allude to the weight of the Ring without just having Frodo say it over and over again, which would be tiresome. Thus the journey through Mordor may seem a bit tedious to persons who have not read the book in question; reports were that Frodo's ring-wracked visions and physical weakness seem whiny next to Sam's plucky courage, which is of course explained for book-readers by the fact that Frodo is carrying the One Ring that was forged from all the evil in Middle-Earth, while Sam is carrying Elf-bread and spices. (If past experience is a guide, this fault may be partially corrected in the extended DVD version of "The Return of the King," which already is rumored to be a full hour-and-a-half longer than this three-and-a-third hour movie.)

Still, "The Return of the King" only amplifies all the virtues of the first two films; just as Tolkien's novel was a completely satisfying conclusion to his saga, so does Jackson pull out the stops and deliver a final effort of amazing beauty and power, one that richly deserves the Best Picture Oscar it's going to win in three months. Even if one quibbles with individual interpretive decisions, there can be no denying that the vision and skill of Jackson and his talented collaborators and cast have made these three films the "Lord of the Rings" to bring them all into the theater, and, in the darkness, bind them.

Attractive Man Count: 3? (Mortensen and Bloom, plus I heard someone say Frodo was hot. I don't know if Frodo counts as a man, though.)

Attractive Woman Count: 2 (Liv Tyler and Otto).

UPON FURTHER REVIEW

If you read the reviews of the first two films I've linked to above, you will notice that I was equivocally enthusiastic in my first two reviews, and then just went all-out in praising this third film. After seeing this third film, though, I'd be way more positive about the first two films if I had them to review again. Like Tolkien's trilogy, Jackson's should really be taken as one huge work of art, as I took it when Spam-O-Maticker Robert Kahn graciously hosted a gathering where we all watched the extended DVD versions of the first two films before heading to the Uptown for the final installment. Every choice Jackson made in the first two films that I objected to makes a lot more sense now, in the context of the resolution he's made. The whole series is really an astonishing achievement, and I hope I have done it justice here.

FOLLICLE FOLLIES

My parents and I were discussing this film and its various attractive cast members when my mother volunteered that Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn would be a lot more attractive if his hair didn't look like some kind of Middle Earth petroleum deposit.

"Oh, come on!" I said. (This is an idea transcription, not a word-for-word, but it sounds better if I make up semi-accurate quotes.) "He hangs out in the forest all the time. He's not one of these stay-at-home people."

"What about Legolas?" she said. "His hair's always fine."

"He's an Elf!" I said. "He's enchanted!"

"What about Gandalf?" she said. "No split ends there."

"He's a wizard! He's even more enchanted than Legolas! You can't go around comparing a mere man's hair-care regimen to enchanted people's!"

"What about Theoden?"

"He had terrible hair before Gandalf enchanted him back into respectability. Then he pretty much looked the same for the whole movie. I'm going to have to chalk that one up to enchantment also."

Then I thought for a bit and came upon my downfall: "Wait — damn. Eowyn's brother."

"Eomer," my mom reminded me.

"Yeah. He wandered around all the time too, and he's definitely a non-enchanted human, and his hair looked fine through the whole thing."

My dad interjected, "Maybe this is what Elrond was talking about it when he told Aragorn to put aside the Ranger and embrace his destiny."

"Yeah, maybe he was sniffing at the time," I said. "Only Jackson didn't film that part."

For my part, I think Miranda Otto is way hotter than Liv Tyler in these movies. Tyler just lies around breathing heavily and absorbing cinematographer Andrew Lesnie's admittedly gorgeous lighting and deciding to be mortal, while Otto goes out and freaking kills orcs and a ringwraith — she never looks better than when she's shoving that sword into the Nazgul. Who do you want, the woman who takes three whole movies to actually go ahead and become mortal already or the woman who's got your back when the armies of the Dark Lord are storming your citadel? No offense to Elf-women, but I'll take the latter.

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