Data
Title: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Year: 2003
Length: 201 minutes (theatrical cut)
Director: Peter Jackson
Writers: Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
Starring: Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Bernard Hill, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, John Noble, Miranda Otto, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, David Wenham, Elijah Wood
Music: Howard Shore
Distinctions: Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Score, Best Song ("Into the West"), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound Mixing; currently #12 on the IMDb's Top 250
My reaction
Synopsis: desperate battles against the forces of evil
How I saw it: in the theater, 2003; on video many times (have extended cut on DVD), most recently yesterday (theatrical cut, rented from Netflix)
Concept: Indifferent.
Story: Good.
Characters: Great.
Dialog: Good. This time they give most of the ridiculously corny lines to John Rhys-Davies. That works.
Pacing: Indifferent. Five endings!
Cinematography: Indifferent.
Special effects/design: Great.
Acting: Good. Liv Tyler and Elijah Wood are both still terrible, but Tyler has a smaller part and Frodo's so near to dead for most of the movie that it doesn't matter much.
Music: Good.
Subjective Rating: 9/10 (One of my favorites). I liked it last night a lot more than I did the last time I saw it, a few years ago. It always used to be my least favorite of the trilogy, but now I found myself watching it as a film rather than as a geekfest. I can't even do that with the other two. This one just works differently. It shamelessly manipulates your emotions, where the first two rely more on a "Dude, that's awesome" factor. Although, some of the Attempted Emotion Manipulation doesn't work at all (e.g., the romantic subplot, or anything after the first ending), so it's good they still have enough awesomeness to fall back on.
Objective Rating:
I saw all of them in the theater and loved them, saw them all again when the extended DVD came out and loved them, but I rewatched this one a couple months ago, and something happened, it just didn't hold up as well as I'd hoped. But you're right, there is still a lot of awesome in it to make it worth watching.
ReplyDeleteDid you rewatch the extended version or the theatrical version? While I love some of the stuff that's only in the extended version, the "shorter" cut probably works a lot better.
ReplyDeleteI expect most people feel differently about this one than they do about the other two, whether it's liking it more or liking it less. It's got a surprisingly different sensibility.
Good point -- I rewatched the extended one. I bet if it was just the regular 3 hour one, it would be have held up a little better.
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