First Review in from the BBC

[Mattius]

I thought I would open a new thread where people can paste reviews of RotK for members to read- here is the BBC's.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Director Peter Jackson's cinematic retelling of The Lord of the Rings ends with The Return of the King. <P>At the end of the second Rings movie, The Two Towers, Jackson let us hang on the realisation the truly dark times were yet to come. <P>Though the wizard Saruman's army had been despatched at the Battle of Helm's Deep and his fortress at Isengard laid to ruin, this battle had been merely a sideshow. <P>In Mordor, the evil Sauron was stirring, building up his armies. And two of the central characters, hobbits Frodo and Sam, were getting ever closer to destroying the Ring central to the tale, unaware their ghoulish guide Gollum was plotting their demise. <P>The Return of the King opens with a flashback to the days when Gollum - Smeagol as he was known then - found the Ring, and how its evil power slowly transformed him into a twisted, cave-dwelling creature. <P>Spine-tingling <P>It gives an extra touch of humanity to the pitiable creature even if he ultimately desires Sam and Frodo dead. <P>After this the next 40 minutes of the film drag slightly, feeling like bits cobbled together that were left over from the previous film. <P>But the rest of the movie is worth the wait, transfixing with every scene. <P>The Return of the King brings an overwhelming air of expectation and of consequence - and in almost every sense it dwarfs what has come before. <P> <BR>The battles make The Two Towers pale by comparison <P>The film, like its previous two instalments, takes many liberties with JRR Tolkien's text, but it does so judiciously. <P>But this editing works. Jackson has done it because he wants us to be be utterly embroiled in the story. He succeeds. <P>Frodo's gradual disintegration thanks to the Ring - and the menace from some blood-curdling foes on the road to Mordor - give his quest crushing pathos. <P>The viewer is wholly engrossed in the fear whether Frodo can survive long enough to destroy the Ring - or whether it will destroy him. <P>Meanwhile, the rest of the main characters are embroiled in the war against Sauron's forces. <P>Familiar characters Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and Gandalf return to fight for good in the final battle for Middle-earth. <P>Hobbits Merry and Pippin are given more chance to shine - especially Pippin (Billy Boyd), who has a more dramatic role than his jokey earlier persona, and braves darker scenes. <P>Miranda Otto's Eowyn also gets a far more important part to play. <P>The trilogy may have sometime struggled to give its female leads meaty roles, but the finale give her a vitally important duty - one that will have female fans cheering. <P> <BR>Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) must face his destiny <BR>The Two Towers' ground-breaking battle scenes seem like a skirmish compared to The Return of the King's titanic-scale war. <P>The assault on the city defended by the main characters and their forces is quite simply jaw-dropping. <P><BR>Triumph <P>In one scene the camera seems to peep tentatively over the parapet to show the evil legions on the attack - tens of thousands of orcs, trolls bearing siege engines, winged beasts swooping overhead. <P>It is spine-tingling stuff. <P>Jackson, who loves his battles, imbues his warfare with crushing realism, all the more ironic given this is pure fantasy. <P>There are moments harking back to iconic movies Saving Private Ryan and The Empire Strikes Back that show the scruffy New Zealand director is, without argument, a master of his craft. <P>But along the way, he does not forget the human dimensions to this struggle either, and that it is friendship and loyalty that the forces of good have to rely on as much as force of arms. <P>This three-hour, 11-minute epic is an unqualified triumph, one that raises the bar for any spectacle-respecting director of the future. The Oscar, surely, must go to Peter Jackson. <BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[doug*platypus]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> moments harking back to iconic movies Saving Private Ryan and The Empire Strikes Back <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Ah-ha! I knew it! I always had a feeling that those Oliphaunt-thingys were basically just AT-ATs with big ears.

[Mattius]

At three hours and eleven minutes it clocks in at the longest of the three theatrical versions. I would guess that there is also a lot to put back in when the EX DVD arrives. This could mean it becomes over four hours long.

[The Saucepan Man]

Thanks for posting this Mattius. It pretty much echoes other reviews that I have read that are starting to come out in the UK newspapers. Whatever one may think of the changes, omissions etc that have undoubtedly been made, it is clear that this film is going to acheive overwhelming critical acclaim, even moreso than its predecessors (and they were more than well-enough received). I'm looking forward to seeing what Jonathan Ross has to say about it. He is certainly a fan of the previous two films.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> ... the scruffy New Zealand director is, without argument, a master of his craft. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I am glad to see this point made, for I feel that it is one that is often overlooked amidst despair at the changes made to Tolkien's story and characters. These films may not follow the books faithfully, indeed they make great departures at times, but they are nevertheless, in my opinion, masterpieces of film-making. To my mind, as a film director, Jackson is as good as any (and miles ahead of most).

[Elladan and Elrohir]

Agreed on PJ, Saucepan Man. No matter how close or far the movies are from the book, few will deny that they are masterpieces in movie-making. And it sounds like ROTK will be by far the best of the three.

[Lord of Angmar]

Muchas gracias, Mattius. <P>The third film seems to be getting overwhelmingly positive reviews. The BBC article is probably the most praiseful I have yet read.<P>I found this particularly funny review on a UK news site:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>"If you were to play dungeons and dragons for twelve hours straight, eat a wheel of brie and knock yourself out with a hammer, your dreams might look something like this." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><p>[ 9:03 AM December 12, 2003: Message edited by: Lord of Angmar ]

[The Saucepan Man]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> The BBC article is probably the most praiseful I have yet read. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Actually, I think that this one from yesterday's <I>Times</I> (a UK newspaper) beats it on that score:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> <B>One film to rule them all</B><P><B>By James Christopher</B> <P>December 11, 2003<P>AND so it ends, the greatest film trilogy ever mounted, with some of the most amazing action sequences committed to celluloid. The Return of the King is everything a Ring fan could possibly wish for, and much more. <BR>The sense of closure is exquisite, but I’m not sure I’m able to forgive Peter Jackson for the three years that he has taken to put it on the screen. The wait has been excruciating. <P>Frustrating, too, as it takes a fiendish amount of time to pick up the scattered threads of the story. The film is not great art. It’s a Herculean assault course that runs the emotions ragged for an exhausting 3hrs 21mins. That said, it would be churlish not to gift the film the full five stars. <BR>It has always been the sheer scale of Jackson’s ambition that has impressed. If the crawl of the Hobbits towards the fires of Mordor provides the heartbeat, it’s the bloodcurdling battle scenes and a new battalion of monsters who provide the thrills. While the Ring leaches the spirit from Elijah Wood’s Frodo, and Sean Astin’s Sam, the rest of the Fellowship tool up for the Last Battle with the kind of demented heroism that leaves you weak at the knees. “Certainty of death? Small chance of success? What are we waiting for?” harrumphs John Rhys-Davies’s Dwarf. <P>“Never get between a Nazgul and his prey,” rumbles a faceless wraith. It’s excellent advice. The Jurassic beasts in Return of the King are awesome. The Nazgul itself looks as if it was conceived by the Loch Ness monster after an indecent night with a giant bat. <P>There are more stone trolls than you can shake a stick at and, if you are mildly arachnophobic, I would seriously advise closing your eyes when Andy Serkis’s show-stealing Gollum lures Frodo into Shelob’s sticky lair. <P>The real power of the film comes in surprisingly intimate moments, giving the spectacle a psychological gravity that surprises. The way that Jackson frames Gollum’s schizophrenia by showing him talking to himself in a puddle is an inspired touch. Ian McKellen milks Gandalf’s secret fears like a man who has had one too many prunes. <P>The plot itself turns on Aragorn’s coming of age when he returns to claim the throne of Gondor, a seat kept warm by John Noble’s surly steward who stuffs his face with sweetmeats while his armies are gutted by rotting orcs and huge elephantine dinosaurs crewed by ugly Mad Max nutters. <P>It is the battlefield horrors that do most of the dazzling. The close-quarter action photography with gristle and bone is spliced with dizzy shots of flying masonry launched by ginormous trebuchets. Everything seems ginormous, apart from the Hobbits. There’s even a Pirates of the Caribbean moment when an army of ghosts is brought to staggering life. <P>How do you follow up a film like this? I’m not sure you can, or how sane that would be. The characters and their exploits have seeped into the film lexicon. It is quite simply the action trilogy by which all others will be measured.<BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Wow! Quite a ringing (if you'll pardon the pun) endorsement. Equally as euphoric, but somewhat grudging in the final analysis, is this interesting review from today's <I>Independent</I> (another UK newspaper):<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> <B>All hail Gollum and the orcs after Jackson's maddening goodbye to the world of Tolkien</B><P><B>By Charlotte O'Sullivan</B><P>12 December 2003<BR> <BR>From the start, director Peter Jackson said the final instalment would be the best. Hundreds turned up in the wee hours of yesterday morning, despite the rain, so they would have a good view of cast members such as Liv Tyler, Orlando Bloom and Sir Ian McKellen walking into the premiere at London's Odeon Leicester Square. <P>Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy has morphed from being a quirky gamble, a fantasy adventure too frightening for kids and possibly too silly for adults into the surest thing in town. Harry Potter 3 didn't dare take it on this Christmas. The battle for the West has been fought and Jackson, the hairy, humble New Zealander who met his wife while working on the BBC's Worzel Gummidge, would seem to have won. <P>Expectations for The Return of the King have peaked somewhere around the Himalayas. The opening sequence leaves us giddier still. Gollum * the hissing, bubble-eyed, two-timing maniac who stole the show in The Two Towers * is here seen as a harmless hobbit, Smeagol, before the precious ring came into his life, and as he raspingly puts it, "Cursed us!"<BR> <BR>Andy Serkis, the British actor formerly invisible "beneath" the computer animation, undergoes an electrifying transformation * sinking, like the most desperate of junkies, into the squalid ecstasy of self-annihilation. Jackson has taken a risk, but it pays off. <P>After that, Jackson gets on with the more conventional business of setting up the various plot-strands (for those unfamiliar with Tolkien, or the previous two films, I apologise for the confusion that's about to ensue). Frodo Baggins and Sam are led off by Gollum (the world's least reliable tourist guide) to Mordor; Gandalf goes with Pippin to the aid of a besieged castle in Gondor; Theoden and his niece and Merry prepare to meet him there later; Arwen persuades her father that she really, really, really is prepared to die for Aragorn; and the latter (with Legolas and Gimli in tow) tries to whip up an army amongst the undead. I've missed one or two people out, but you get the gist. Everyone's busy and there's not a minute to lose. <P>The New Zealand landscape, as ever, shovels its way into your psyche and the huge battle scenes feel as personal and fraught with tension as domestic dramas. Meanwhile, the actors say their lines with such fierce commitment that you daren't miss a word. Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson) and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) are the crucial authority figures, but the little hobbits, this time, play a much bigger (ahem) part. <P>Every now and again we may get a little restless, but mostly we're right in there, weeping softly when a certain person passes away; laughing madly at the carefully paced jokes; keeping an eye on the increasingly agitated and Byronic Frodo. <P>And then *disaster! Having stroked and stimulated us into submission, Jackson just can't think how to wrap things up. At one of the film's many climaxes, Sam implores Frodo to let go of the ring. Jackson's fingers show a similar unwillingness to unfurl. The magic has time to wear off. Who are this portentous lot? You suddenly find yourself wondering, and why have they stolen so much of my time (three and a half hours, and that's before all the DVDs)? <P>Reverence is crucial to this project. But, as our heroes say soppy farewells to each other for the umpteenth time, all sorts of blasphemous thoughts come to mind. Such as that the real battle here is between two sorts of men's hairdo: the wet-look perm and the samurai pony-tail. <P>I came out of The Two Towers feeling like I'd been converted to the Church of Tolkien; I emerged from The Return of the King on the side of the gargoyles. Those orcs may have bad teeth and kill you without thinking. On the up-side, they probably wouldn't chew your ears off with long goodbyes. <BR> <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I do think it somewhat churlish that, after 10 or so hours of film, this reviewer begrudges the characters their final farewells. I have seen this criticism made elsewhere, but it was always inevitable that there would be a fairly lengthy wrap-up. Imagine what this reviewer would have made of it if the <I>Scouring of the Shire</I> had been kept in. <P>By the way, don't you just hate it when these reviewers who have clearly never read the books get the details wrong? Minas Tirith a "castle in Gondor" indeed!