Return of the King

It’s tough to criticize the final chapter of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Even casual fans now seem to defend Tolkien’s text with almost biblical fervor, frothing at the mouth at even the mention of literary meddling. Which is a shame, because other than Jackson’s slavish attachment to the source material, “Return of the King” is a largely successful conclusion for Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn and the rest of the Middle Earth gang. The film’s visual effects quite literally reach a peak, with a distinctly vertical sense of dizzying heights prevalent in Frodo and Sam’s ascent of Mount Doom and the towering city of Gondor, the focal point of Sauron’s attack against all Mankind. There’s a great deal of emotional set-up before we make it to the big show – a winner take all battle between the newly crowned King Aragorn and an endless army of Mordor’s enemy forces. If you’re mouth doesn’t hang open in awe, you’re jaw must be wired shut. But for all the grandiose images on display, there’s still a number of distracting flaws, the most obvious being the 3 1/2 hour running time. As the focus shifts to secondary characters like hobbits Merry and Pippen, the film struggles to maintain the breathless momentum of the second chapter, introducing new challenges and characters just when things need to start wrapping up. And at times, the melodrama gets laid on a little thick (please, no more slow-motion shots set to Enya’s high-pitched warbling!) But thankfully, Gollum (the most engaging and realistic member of the cast despite the fact that he’s a CG creation) is around to keep things interesting along with an absolutely skin-crawling giant spider. There’s no cause for alarm. No one’s bashing Jackson’s final piece of the puzzle. But it might have been nice to see him turn in a film adaptation of Tolkien rather than a word-for-word book report.