Episode 15.5 - The Return of the King Review 7/10

LOTR: The Return of the King - 2003 - Peter Jackson

Let's start this with a quick disclaimer, shall we? When I go to watch a movie that's based on a book, I go to watch a MOVIE that's BASED on a book. I don't go to watch the book. Many people do, especially purists dorks out there who are more pissed off at those films that take a little creative licensing and make them say “wait, that's not how I pictured it in my head! You suck! I'm posting this nonsense on my blog so I can make myself feel important!” (Don't let that undermine the integrity of this blog or anything...)

The Return of the King is the third in the cautious attempt of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy to introduce to the big screen the second best-selling fantasy story of all time (just behind The Bible. Kidding!). It's difficult to judge the third in a series based off a book because you have to think “well, do I grade it by how it tied into the other two or by how well of an adaptation it was?” Well fuck you all, I'm grading this on how much I enjoyed it because it was another 4 hour long movie and frankly if I cared about how it was in conjunction with the series, I would have just listened to the audiobook as it would have been shorter. So there.

For those who don't know the story, it takes a bit of understanding of the rest of the series, so here's my attempt to make sense of it for synopsis sake. *Deep breath* Fellowship of the Ring, blah, blah, hobbits, elves, blah, magic, blah, blah, orcs, blah, Frodo needs to throw a ring in a volcano, blah, blah, Two Towers, blah, humans, war, blah, blah, big giant walking trees, little pink crack-addicted baby, blah, blah, Frodo still needs to throw a ring in a volcano, blah, blah, Return of the King, fighting, blah, more fighting, blah, blah, even more fighting, blah, blah, Frodo really needs to speed up this ring in the volcano business. Sound about right?

Now I'm anticipating a little discussion here over the symbolism and depth that was Tolkien's grand epic but I'm not afraid to say that as a complete story...it really kind of sucks in my opinion. It confuses itself, loses focus (or gains ADD) and has a big evil overlord villain that gives you no real reason to be afraid of him except he has minions that remind me of various monsters from Power Rangers. When you get right down to it, the whole thing just looks like a filler side plot to get you away from the fact that Frodo and Sam's journey of “Eat, walk, sleep, walk, fight with Smeagol, walk, walk, bitch, sleep” is really pretty damn unexciting.

So goes Return of the King which is pretty much just a big Royal Rumble of good vs. evil that reaches the epic climax of uber-good vs. uber-evil but gets stopped when (Spoiler Alert...) Frodo casts the ring in the volcano and leaves everyone standing around like idiots saying “really? It was just that simple, huh?” I'm reminded of the scene in Galaxy Quest when they need to just hit the red button to stop the self-destruct sequence and there's a fight over how fucking pointless that feels.

This was the extended edition which meant that it got to play it even safer to the purists out there although there apparently were still inconsistencies, but so what, it was still a decent watch. Really got sick of the fighting though. I don't care if it was in the books. There's so many stories around wars, but the fighting is treated like a little of an afterthought to help carry the story so when the big climax hits, you still have that feeling of antici...(say it! Say it!)...pation (Sorry, Rocky moment.) and mumble to yourself “Here we go, baby” when the armies start running after each other near the end.

Return blew its load early and spent the rest of the film glorifying its performance. The special effects were amazing and yeah, it definitely mastered making this whole mess look epic. It won Best Picture and deservedly so. The production values were spectacular with an incredible score to match, which is what kept me going with it through the duration. I had a lot of trouble following the books but I'm sure the adaptation was solid. Overall, this wasn't a bad watch, I just personally feel that from a story perspective, it didn't have a lot of good to work with and that means more to me than anything. If it can't accomplish that, it's hard for me to really want to care.

I've been teetering on a 7 or an 8, but thinking about it, I think I'm sticking to 7. It did so much so well production-wise that I could watch it again just to marvel at it. But its lack of a truly epic feeling climax and forceful entry of scenes that just didn't add much to the story except accuracy (luckily they labeled what was new and extended) really hurt the experience I was hoping for. I can safely say the non-extended edition probably would have gotten an 8 from me for that fact. Like I said, I'm grading this based on how much I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it to a 7.