Return of the King

The Return of the King is a very strong conclusion to a great adaptation of a great trilogy. I think the most memorable scenes from this movie were its vistas, msot notably the lighting of the beacons adn some of the Pelennor Fields stuff. Minas Tirith somehow seemed less than I expected - the strongest scenes in that city probably remain the ones of Aragorn's funeral in the Two Towers dream sequence. The landscape of Rohan also continued to impress. I agree with Ed Cohn that the battles had less of a personal element, except for the hobbits fighting, but find that overall character development was fairly strong. Frodo and Sam's relationship was well handled, as usual, Pippin gained in maturity and experience, Aragorn took up the mantle of kingship, and Merry and Theoden each showed how far they've come.

If anything got shorted, it was the Faramir/Denethor plotline. The character of Denethor loses a lot without the palantir, and if I'm a viewer unfamiliar with the books I'm probably wondering what exactly that black globe was all about anyway. We never see the resolution of Faramir's character, despite the way in which it was here set up. We also never see Eomer become king, thiugh we're left with the impression. The absence of "The Scouring of the Shire" and "The Voice of Saruman" are less of a problem for me, though again viewers might wonder whether Saruman was just kept in his tower forever.

If you get the chance to see this movie, do, on as big a screen as possible. If you don't know the Tolkein universe that well, though, a glance through the previous movies is a must.