Aragorn is revealed as the heir to the ancient kings as he, Gandalf and the other members of the broken fellowship struggle to save Gondor from Sauron's forces. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam bring the ring closer to the heart of Mordor, the dark lord's realm.
Every tale embarks us on a new journey, every journey eventually comes to its inevitable end. As for The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring turned out to be a genre-defining classic. The Two Towers astonishingly raised the bar to an even higher level. And even though it did seem near-impossible for The Return of the King to triumph over such towering expectations but against all odds, this final journey of Middle-Earth delivers everything & achieves much more than what was expected from it to bring J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary saga to an epic & magnificent conclusion.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the culmination of the wonderful journey we embarked on with The Fellowship of the Ring & picks up the story right from where it was left off in The Two Towers. The story finds Frodo & Sam continuing their quest towards Mount Doom in order to destroy the One Ring but are unaware of Gollum's forthcoming treachery while the rest of the fellowship prepares for its greatest battle as the Dark Lord Sauron turns his eye on Gondor. But in the end, it all comes down to Frodo & the One Ring to decide the final fate of Middle-Earth.
Directed by Peter Jackson, this chapter remains his finest directional achievement & The Lord of the Rings as a whole is certainly his magnum opus. Making all films in a trilogy succeed on both critical & commercial scale is no mere achievement but to make the next instalment work better than its predecessor two times in a row is even rarer. And yet, Jackson manages to accomplish exactly that in the end with his sweeping cinematic vision, stunning eye for detail & in-depth knowledge of balancing emotional storytelling with large-scale action entertainment.
Written by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh & Phillipa Boyens, the screenplay is cleverly adapted from the source material as many right choices were made in the decision of what to include & what to leave out from the final script. Walsh also tries her hand at film direction as the shocking prologue this film opens with is her creation. Being the final film of the trilogy, there is a sense of urgency in this chapter but it still ties up all the loose ends appropriately, provides proper farewells to its characters & delivers a high-quality entertainment of such epic proportions that fans couldn’t have asked for a better finale.
Coming to the technical aspects, it once again presents major upgrades in all departments & is seamlessly balanced throughout its runtime. Production design adds even more amazing & meticulously detailed sets to its story. The dazzling cinematography further magnifies the visual presentation to make the cinematic experience even more magical. Howard Shore's epic score reaches a level of greatness with tracks that are truly imposing, beautiful & further expand the domain of its predecessors and the soundtrack of The Lord of the Rings remains the greatest work of his illustrious career.
The most groundbreaking feat is once again its visual effects, however, this time it isn’t a slight advancement but a pretty huge leap. Everything that made its brief appearance in the first two chapters is fully explored in this finale plus the length, scope & magnitude of battle sequences it offers is second to none. Also, with better rendering of its CGI characters & stunning level of craftsmanship in costumes, make-up & sound, The Return of the King sets a new benchmark for visuals in cinema that remains unequaled, as of today, in the scope of how much it contributed to the film’s art while elevating the whole experience.
Despite running at 201 minutes, there were many things which got omitted from the theatrical cut & that’s why the extended edition with more than 50 minutes of additional footage is more recommended. Also, many happen to criticise the extensive time the film takes to finally end its story but if you ever watch The Lord of the Rings the way it is meant to be seen i.e. in one sitting, then it’ll make perfect sense to you because not only is it a reasonably enough time to recover the audience from what is an emotionally draining experience but it also provides proper farewells that every single one of its main characters deserved.
Coming to the performances, The Fellowship of the Ring & The Two Towers introduced almost all characters we needed to be acquainted with & The Return of the King simply brings their arcs to completion. Unlike the previous two films in which Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) & Gollum (Andy Serkis) turned out to be the most impressive characters, respectively, there is no single dominating performance in this chapter as its entire cast puts up a more mature on-screen portrayal of their respective characters & never really leaves anything major to complain about.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is unanimously hailed by critics & readers alike as the greatest fantasy novel ever written & a milestone in the world of literature. And it's amazing that its film adaptation follows the same route in the world of cinema. It did catapult Peter Jackson into the big leagues of Hollywood while also setting up Weta Digital as one of the foremost VFX studios on the planet but where this saga made its biggest impact is on cinema itself for it changed everything there ever was about epic & fantasy filmmaking, is one of the most important films of the modern era & a landmark moment in the annals of cinema.
On an overall scale, The Return of the King is more than just a fitting conclusion to The Lord of the Rings. It triumphs as one of the greatest sequels ever made but along with The Fellowship of the Ring & The Two Towers, it also makes up for cinema’s greatest motion picture trilogy that will not soon, if ever, find its equal. An unprecedented achievement in the world of filmmaking that's epic in every sense of the word, The Lord of the Rings is in some ways to cinema what its source material was to literature & it is destined to remain a standard against which all future film trilogies will be measured for decades to come.
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