LOR: The Return of the King

Starring: (in alphabetical order) Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Brad Dourif, Bernard Hill, Sir Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, Miranda Otto, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler, Karl Urban, Hugo Weaving, David Wenham, and Elijah Wood.
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Rated PG-13

Bluntly Speaking? LOR: ROFTK is a sweeping masterpiece that's story confuses sometimes, but always dazzles the mind's eye and astonishes with its shear girth of talent held within the frames. Bravo, on possibly, film's greatest technical achievement to date. Best picture 2003? For sure.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is a spectacular otherworldly visual masterpiece. Though you will need your 'Middle Earth For Dummies' Cliff© notes and a penlight to keep up with all the elements if your not a Tolkienian. There's a billion characters and subplots running in a fury towards a deliciously satisfying conclusion to the infamous trilogy.

We pick up were the last film left us...adorable Hobbit Frodo (Elijah Wood), Samwise (Sean Astin) and Gollum (cgi/Andy Serkis) are on a hellish journey, heading toward the big eye thingy aka Sauron's territory to chuck the dreaded ring into the volcano aptly named Mount Doom - thusly ending evil's uprising and setting forth the age of man. If he fails all is lost.

The ogres and slimy creatures are none to willing to just sit about and wait on Frodo's fate. They amass under Sauron's orders start the slaughter to eliminate man once and for all. And this is a helluva army folks. They gather by the hundreds of thousands before the mighty city Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor, where the present "steward" Denethor (John Noble) seems to have gone mad as a acid tripping hatter...

Not to worry dear old Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen) and his warriors will defend the city till their death and hopefully place Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) where his ancestry has sketched his fate.

Whew...okay, my head hurts already.

In this one film there's fabulous men being noble, people joining each other to defend the world they love, giant creatures that soar into your imagination, lands and cities that have you in perpetual awe at their impeccable beauty and craftsmanship.

The battle scenes are unlike anything to date; simply glorious. There's great monsters and villains, heroes and hunks...lots of hunks. In fact it's a down-right manfest extravaganza people...there's some yummy bits of exception; Legoland, err, Legolas Prince of Elves and master of the bow aka Mr. Orlando Bloom; Aragon, the man who would be king, is mansicle Viggo Mortensen; Faramar the unloved steward's son, aka David Wenham too rises an eyebrow or two...and even Sir Ian McKellan looks cheeky all gallant and stern upon his white steed. Frodo and the boys, Merry (Dominic Monaghan), Pippin (Billy Boyd) and of course Sam are cute but nay manly...Samwise's actor counterpart, Sean Astin, hands in a great performance atop his furry little feet; touching and heroic.

And Middle Earth's women also come with added charm! They are not exactly wilting flowers willing to darn socks while their men take all the glory. The extra girly elf Arwen (Liv Tyler) and sword wielding über chickbabe Lady Éowyn (Miranda Otto) are so fit and shaply it almost makes you want to rejoin the gym...almost.

There's a few faux pas among the glory…the end has a tad of that "oh-no" Artificial Intelligence air to it...it just keeps ending, then going on. The film is certainly designed to tie up all the lose ends and keep all the Hobbit loving middle-Earth loving folks without wonder...for the rest of us it got a tad sugar coated and dull - but the hours before grant Jackson the extended gratuitous extension or two. Also, oddly, most of the long shots of the Hobbits, again, look like Raggedy Anne afro-sporting dollar-store dolls. What's up with that?

Snack recommendation: Samwise fare and Shire brand ale