(Extended Edition)

“My friends. You bow to no one.”

Frodo and Sam must continue their journey to destroy the One Ring, all while being led by the scheming and unpredictable Gollum. Meanwhile, wars with Sauron’s forces begin to hit their peak, as Aragorn rallies to fulfill his destiny by uniting all the people of Middle-earth and claiming his crown as king of Gondor. The closer that Frodo and Sam get to Mount Doom, the heavier the ring becomes on its bearer, as the two’s eventual fate becomes more and more uncertain.

I don’t even think that it can be questioned to say that this is by far the most epic and grand out of all The Lord of the Rings films, which is obviously probably how it should be with the concluding chapter of a trilogy. This isn’t just an ordinary conflict; it’s a battle for all of the people of Middle-earth, and whether or not Sauron will destroy all those who live in it, and you feel that throughout all four hours of its runtime (if you are watching the Extended Edition). What’s amazing, though, is that the biggest battles aren’t even the parts of the movie that feel or have the highest stakes; it’s Frodo and Sam’s journey. So while you are watching all of these incredible battle sequences take place, you are also thinking about how important it is that these two hobbits make it to Mount Doom.

Speaking of the battles, they are honestly one of the greatest cinematic achievements ever put to film. Their size and scale are incredible, but without incredible action and visuals, they wouldn’t deliver, and let’s just say that they definitely delivered. The CGI alone makes this perhaps the best visual effects movie to come out of the 2000s, and yes, that includes Avatar (I know I said it). It’s simply nothing short of incredible what they were able to achieve in the early part of the century with their CGI, to the point where it’s hard to really understand how painstakingly hard and tedious it must have been to pull all of this off.

When it comes to just the visuals, not just talking about the battles, this is also the best-looking out of the trilogy, with really the only rival to it being the Battle of Helm’s Deep from The Two Towers. This has not only my favorite locations from the Middle-earth franchise, but some of my favorite movie locations ever. When you finally see Mordor in all of its glory, it is just as grand and, honestly, terrifying as one would hope it would be; the Eye of Sauron is just plain terrifying when you see it doing its work, and the gritty colors of the landscape really do give off the sense that Frodo and Sam have made it to the end of their long journey. I’m also a big fan of just every single location that takes place in Return of the King, from Minas Tirith to the Paths of the Dead.

I absolutely love the battles, visuals, CGI, and just plain scale of this film, but honestly, the best parts are simply just the moments between Frodo and Sam. Their friendship has been the heart of this whole trilogy from the beginning, and it’s definitely the best here. My favorite scenes of the series are really just the ones where Frodo clearly can’t do this journey alone, and so Sam encourages him and helps him to get to the end, with some really excellent acting from Elijah Wood and Sean Astin that really deliver on the emotions of their characters. It’s amazing how the weight of the Ring only felt heavier and heavier as the trilogy went along, and you see that in the incredible performances of these two.

Adding to that, they have to deal with even more of an unpredictable evil in Gollum than they had to before. Andy Serkis as the character is just as excellent as he was before, and we even get more background behind him, but most of what I said about him in my review of The Two Towers applies here, so I won’t really go too in-depth with the character himself. It’s what the character does and how he impacts Sam and Frodo that is worth noting, testing their friendship to limits it wasn’t tested before.

Legolas and Gimli are just as fun as always, though I felt that they had smaller roles in this one compared to the first two films, as it’s really Aragorn who is the standout of the three. The complex relationship between him and Arwen is arguably at its most poignant here, with some of the most emotionally powerful scenes in the entire movie. On the other hand, with his character arc coming to a close, we get to see probably one of the better “king arcs” out there, even if this type of one has become a bit of a cliché at this point, though I don’t put that on this movie at all since this story was written decades prior to this movie’s release.

One thing I also really love about The Return of the King that I think is worth talking about are the roles that Merry and Pippin serve here. They’ve always been great, but in the first two movies, their roles were mostly limited to being the “fun” characters, so to speak, who really just served as tension breakers or comedic reliefs to lighten things up a little bit. In this film, however, they really get a lot to do so much so that their journeys alongside the rest of the Fellowship felt necessary and earned. Another character that I can say the same about is Éowyn, whose purpose in this movie felt way ahead of its time, especially if it was a part of the original Tolkien novel (I’m not sure if it was, as I haven’t read the books yet, but plan to.)

Really though, one of the hardest things a trilogy has to do is close off everything satisfyingly. With The Lord of the Rings, just the sheer amount of stuff that needed to come to a close was certainly one of the tallest tasks that this movie/story had to accomplish, if not the highest. Well, I think it’s widely known that this film certainly accomplished that in the best possible way imaginable. Not only does the whole mission itself of destroying the ring and defeating Sauron end epically, but quite literally all of our characters (and there are a lot of them) have completely satisfying endings. The ending itself is also so perfect that it becomes one of those endings that should never get any further material that explains what happens next, as it’s best left to the imagination of the viewer.

I don’t want to talk too long on this last section, because I, again, don’t want to repeat what I said in previous reviews, but the score can’t go without mentioning. There is a little bit more of vocal performance with the songs/tracks used in this entry, and not only do they yet again sound amazing, but they are also edited alongside some of the battle sequences incredibly well. Some of the most chilling scenes, one in particular, are the scenes like that.

After finishing this trilogy for the second time, I can pretty easily say that it is my favorite trilogy ever made at this point in time. Just the sheer quality of not only the stories taking place, but the production of these movies, yes, all roughly twelve hours across the extended versions has had me in awe like no other movies ever have. This trilogy, and honestly probably The Hobbit movies as well, will probably become a yearly rewatch for me (at the very least).