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A New Line release. Written by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens; directed by Peter Jackson; starring Viggo Mortenson and Elijah Wood. Released to DVD on May 25, 2004.  High expectations are a director’s worst enemy. As I’ve stated many times before, making a film is a hard enough task without having any extraneous conditions put upon you. And knowing that your film has to be good is a pressure that has the ability to easily sink a project. Intent on making their movies as great as possible, directors can occasionally slip into the habit of borrowing elements from other respected movies or dutifully inflating the parts that they suspect are already good. Ignoring the mounting pressure from audiences, critics and New Line to deliver a satisfying and enjoyable conclusion to his Lord of the Rings trilogy, writer/producer/director Peter Jackson crafted one of the more gratifying final chapters in recent memory, far outdoing the last installments of The Matrix, Star Wars or Godfather series. As Return of the King opens, we are reintroduced to Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Sam Gamgee (Sean Astin) as the two hobbits continue on their journey to Mordor in an effort to destroy the all powerful and aptly named Ring of Power. Elsewhere in Middle Earth, Gandalf the White (Ian McKellen) and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) are preparing to engage in a make-or-break battle with Sauron’s forces of darkness at the city of Minas Tirith. One of the truly admirable qualities of The Lord of the Rings series and The Return of the King specifically is the way in which Jackson repeatedly manages to instill a heightened tension into scenes featuring the strangest characters in the most unfamiliar situations. Jackson accomplished this by creating a powerful enemy whose reach was almost unending. The home to evil, the land of Mordor, had a dark and malignant presence that is felt so eerily and often throughout the film that it essentially becomes a secondary character in the story itself.  But the crux of the matter is that the anxiety and unease permeating the material is there because Jackson and his production team took great pains to make the scenes look genuine. Throughout the movie, the viewer worries about the health and well being of Aragorn and Frodo because their conflicts and travails feel real. Unlike the new installments of Star Wars or the occasionally poor special effects in Daredevil or Hulk that elicit characters who seem to operate independently of their environment, nothing in The Return of the King seems out of place. The lighting on the characters (including the entirely computer generated Gollum) always matches its light source and the wide variety of miniatures and equally low-tech matte paintings bring even more realism to author JRR Tolkien’s fantasy world. The Return of the King is a long movie, running over 200 minutes in length, but this is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things; by keeping the film’s nearly fifteen minute epilogue, Jackson not only informs the viewer of what is (and will) happen to the main characters, but also allows the viewer some much needed time to decompress and reflect upon the harrowing and superbly photographed hour long battle at Minas Tirith. Epic, grand and supremely well made, The Return of the King isn’t the best film in The Lord of the Rings series (that honor goes to The Fellowship of the Ring) but is a stunning note on which to end. This is movie-making at its finest.
chris neumer yes, it's true: Stuart Townsend (Charlize Theron's love, who attended the Oscars in a white tuxedo) was originally cast as Aragorn. |
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