Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King
Directed by Peter Jackson
2003 PG 13/12A
Lord of the Rings -
The
Return Of The King, the final installment
of Peter Jackson's movie trilogy based on Tolkein's
Lord Of The Rings, is
a work of collective genius. Until now I thought
it was mandatory for movie franchises to unravel
into an unsatisfying soup of diminishing returns by the third installment,
assuming they crawl that far. It is all the
more impressive, then, that
The Return Of The
King is a triumph of great story, great fantasy
and great direction: the best movie of a fantastic trilogy! There are a couple of minor
niggles, which I reveal in
Spoilers Corner,
but this movie is as perfect as movies get, let alone blockbusters.
Firstly, the characters in LOTR are so appealing that it feels rather sad when
the unfortunate ones peg it.
In fact it is almost painful to watch the Riders Of Rohan or the
troops of Gondor get mashed beneath
foot of troll or poked by orcish arrow. Rarely in recent Hollywood-produced
movies do I cheer on the good guys, and in this movie I
did.
This movie reawakened the excited kid in me. Mind you, ROTK is awash with violent horror
that
might disturb younger kiddies as much as it will delight the older ones.
Beneath its gleaming armour there is something covertly
politically incorrect about the
Lord Of The
Rings trilogy and this lends the series a refreshing, sincere nobility.
Real men
fight in the wars (only the hobbits are allowed to be wimpy)
and the women and children must
be protected. This valour is true to ancient history. This valour
is good old-fashioned ass-kicking
macho fun that most movie makers have forsaken
these days in reverence to bloodless PC fascism.
The acting is universally superb, which is particularly
impressive given so much can go wrong. Note
the debacle of Anakin and Queen BadActress in
effects-intensive movies such as
Star
Wars: Attack Of The Clones.
The LOTR trilogy is fun, and just about everyone
else seems delighted with it too. It appeals
to our raw instinct! Praise the gods that no
lame do-gooder was able to insist upon a token
PC compromise. Imagine a Trinity/Halle Berry-type
androgynous leather-clad heroine pitching up:
a steely, spunky heroine who cannot
act for toffee -
shudder. They could
have
really screwed things up. It infinitely
fortunate that they didn't
Tomb Raider-ise
this trilogy. OK, there is an utterly implausible
female-warrior-in-battle scene, but
even
that potential travesty, an indulgence,
which is not to be found in Tolkien's novel,
works in the context of setting up an emotional
scene. And at least the vivacious Eowyn seems
reluctant, vulnerable and, well, so achingly
feminine.
When you actually
care (more or less)
about what is going on in a movie then the special
effects are of secondary importance. Conversely
if you don't give a flying turd what is going
on (think
Matrix
Revolutions), then effects won't save the
day. But when you care AND the effects are GUT
BLASTINGLY STUNNING, then you have movie elysium
on your hands. One reason the effects work here
pisses all over most movies is because the action
chiefly takes place in broad daylight, you can
actually revel in the beauty and the horror.
The effects have no need to hide themselves
in rain or darkness, they are emblazoned upon
the screen in full splendour. Dingy night time
effects beloved of less imaginative movies are
unsatisfying in comparison. Even
The
Two Towers was slightly guilty of this crime.
The visual and AI effects in this movie are
vastly superior to its two predecessors, and
they are
impressive. Digital
effects movies that made my jaw drop due to
their novelty at the time were
Terminator
2 for it's morphing innovation and
Jurassic
Park for it's novel beastie animation.
The bullet-time effects in the original
The
Matrix and the "Burly Brawl" of
Matrix
Reloaded can be added to the list at a push.
Return of the King
effects have impressed me more than any movie
since
Jurassic Park, kudos to Weta.
There isn't anything genuinely novel here, effects
wise, but what impresses is the audacious scale
and integration of those effects. Gollum is
great, of course, but what really stands out
are the immense battles. The crowds and and
the monsters on the battle field are stunning.
The effects in the previous LOTR movies are
superlative, but
ROTK
trumps all that went before.
And the mockney accents of the comedy orcs work
surprisingly well. Another stunning trick Jackson
pulled off was to make the hated orcs simultaneously
fearsome in their ant-like multitudes, and funny.
These were well needed breaks from the laudably
ernest performances of the hero characters (dwarfs
excepted). Another trap that Jackson sensibly
avoided was to insert a non-stop-chattering
character as comic relief, like that
annoying green testicle in
Monsters
Inc.
After a lousy blockbuster year, it is pleasant to declare my exaltation for
The
Return Of The King.
The word
anticlimax is
definitely
not in the
LOTR trilogy's vocab, not in human,
elvish, orcish, dwarvish or even hobbitish.
Incredible.
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spoilers corner
Spoilers!!!!
Warning: this box contains a movie post-mortem analysis that freely gives away important plot twists and details. If you have not yet seen this movie and intend seeing it, avoid this spoilers box until afterwards. Bookmark the page, see the movie, see if you agree with my review then write an arsy comment saying I am talking total b*ll*cks :-)
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This movie was so pleasingly kick-ass,
doubly so after the crushingly disappointing
Matrix
Revolutions. Compare Trinity's
croaking it scene from Revolutions with
the compassion of Theoden's demise. The former
was trite, absolutely laughable. The latter was poignant: a bit too
picturesque, perhaps, but hey, this is
fantasy. This comparison proves that
Jackson can direct emotional scenes, whereas the
Wachowski brothers are horribly fallible
in this art. The piss poor acting of Reeves
and Trinity (and at least Trinity can
act) is exposed here also, though much
of the blame lies with hollow, MTV-style direction,
plot and the god-awful Revolutions dialogue.
Nanoscopic ROTK Niggle 1: some
scenes were too far fetched, the apparent
aim to create as much tension as possible
during some conflicts comes unstuck when
implausibility undermines those scenes.
Take Shelob v. Sam: fat spider, no doubt
about it. Take Ringwraith v. Eowyn: Ringwraith
has full belly. Troll v. Aragorn: squashed
prince, mashed potato style.
Nanoscopic Niggle 2: where was Saruman? Surely they
could have left out the interminable, cutesy
hobbits ending(s) and restored Christopher Lee
into the mix.
Nanoscopic Niggle 3, the cutesy hobbit ending(s) dragged
on for far too long. Though I did approve
of Sam's fine taste in hobbit babes.
ROTK's most stunning scenes were the assault on
Gondor. I'm thinking of watching this
movie again just to marvel at that spectacle: the
camera following the trebuchet
ballast; the chuffed look on the goblin general's face when
a block of debris just misses him; the charge of the Riders through
the feet of the
towering, stomping mammoth beasts;
the merciless thrashing by said elephants
of the cavalry with their tusks (those things make Persian
war elephants look like ponies); Legolas' ascent
of one of those creatures using stuck arrows like
rungs of a ladder, and his slide down the trunk;
Gimli's narked insistence
that Legolas's stylish defeat of the monster
still only counted as one kill; the eyeball-popping zoom out
from Denethors flaming
tumble to the battle action; the Ring Wraiths flinging squaddies
from the citadel walls; the mace-swinging
trolls, the incredible detail and panoramic
ambition shook me like a Ringwraiths scream.
The direction, score, scenery, casting, score, costumes, weaponry, characterisation, pace
and cinematography are all worshipful.
Just as awesome was the beauty and charm of princess Eowyn, what a jewel that woman is.
Aragorn must have transiently lacked testosterone to resist those imploring eyes.
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There are no more spoilers below this
point, except maybe in any user talkback
comments.
End of spoilers corner
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Fewer "endings"
would have been nice, just when you think this movie is
about to finish...
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| From: |
blackjesus | Subject: | 2003-12-27 10:18:12 |
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Alex W. | Subject: | 2004-01-15 10:58:40 |
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Crozzer | Subject: | 2004-01-27 09:01:29 |
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Shelby Sherman | Subject: | 2004-02-02 13:10:04 |
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