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Retrospective Film Review
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) • 20 Years Later — crowning a trilogy forged in fire and friendship
Gandalf and Aragorn lead the World of Men against Sauron’s army to draw his gaze from Frodo and Sam as they approach Mount Doom with the One Ring.
Capturing lightning in a bottle is impressive. Containing it? Mind-blowing. Releasing it in a dazzling spectacle? That’s Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, a cinematic rarity that ascends with each instalment. It’s not just consistently mesmerizing, it’s steadily more profound.
The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) revolutionised fantasy, a box office Hail Mary that stunned critics and audiences alike. The Two Towers (2002) cemented its place as a longtime fan favourite among the trilogy by taking Fellowship’s world-building and adding additional thematic layers of the darkness and turmoil that war brings to all who find themselves enveloped in its flames. And finally, with The Return of the King, Jackson and company brought the story of Rings to new heights by amplifying absolutely everything about the trilogy — the infernal depths of evil, the radiant light of hope and victory — for a colossally powerful conclusion.
Among the already outstanding company offered by its previous two instalments, Return of the King stands out as an exceptional achievement, largely due to its cumulative feel, which is an incredible feat considering all three instalments were filmed concurrently. This sense of time and consequence builds throughout the film, particularly where the threat of Mordor, and the One Ring, are given more than their full weight. The film itself opens with Smeagol (Andy Serkis, shown in this scene without any motion-capture effects) in his moment of transformation into the demented Gollum over five centuries. A brutal…
