The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The third film of the Lord of the Rings trilogy finds the main characters in the same situations. Frodo and Sam (Elijah Wood and Sean Astin) are ever closer to Mount Doom to destroy the ring. However, their guide Gollum along with his alter-ego Smeagol have other ideas for the duo. Meanwhile, Merry and Pippin (Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd), fresh off their victory with the trees, are joined by Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), and the forces of Rodan. In a crystal ball containing the eye of Sauron, Pippin sees a vision of a burning Gondor. Gandalf afterwards decides to bring him along to Minas Tirith in Gondor to see what he could do to help. When there, they find an increasingly mad leader in Denethor still dealing with the loss of his favorite son Boromir, much to the chagrin of the other son Faramir. Gandalf soon begins to take control of preparations to fortify Minas Tirith and the men of Rodan begin to mass and march to Gondor.

Seeing that their force was small compared to the army of Orcs that lay ahead, Aragorn seeks the help of the dead, who will only be led by the king of men. They agree and all converge on Gondor. Hearing word that Frodo and Sam were close to completing their mission, our male leaders lead an assault on the Black Gates to distract the eye and the Orc forces to hopefully allow the hobbits to pass through the valleys and up the mountain and into the fire.

The other bally-hooed trilogy of the year was The Matrix, which ended by leaving fans awfully disappointed. In contrast, Lord of the Rings will also leave fans wanting for more, but only after sitting through the best movie of the trilogy and quite possibly the best movie of the year. Never before has a simple tale between good and evil been so exquisitely told with such epic storytelling and exhaustive detail. Its story, as long as it takes to be told, moves along with authority and passion as we learn the fates of our main characters. With so many to keep track of, it's amazing it strikes the balance that it did. But two characters stand out from the crowd: Gandalf, who refrains from using his powers as a white wizard to lead the forces of Gondor as a military wizard, and Sam, whose loyalty is tested to the extreme and never fails his friend Frodo on his trek to destroy the ring.

The battle is more amazing this time around with 3 battles to keep track of. The city of Minas Tirith was very pretty to look at, but to see it destroyed stone by stone was also an amazing achievement. The battles also take numerous cues from other famous cinematic battles including Aragorn's William Wallace speech complete with a moving horse and the takedown moves needed to stop the elephants were similar to the takedown moves of the walkers in the last two Star Wars films.

Director Peter Jackson still has a problem of his lingering camera, staying with shots that could easily be edited out and reduce the 200 minutes of airtime this movie gets. Case in point: on Gandalf's ride to Minas Tirith, a 7-level complex, we spend more than a minute watching Gandalf ride up the complex. OK! It's a big place! We get it! But this problem, and Jackson's obligation to detail that created the 6 or 7 endings for the movie are very minor points to a concluding chapter that stands as the best in a trilogy that stands among the great trilogies of all-time. 4 stars