The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) [Widescreen] – DVD

Buy at Amazon USA Buy at Amazon Canada RUNNING TIME 200 minutes MPAA PG-13 ASPECT RATIO(S) 2.35:1, 16×9-enhanced LANGUAGES English DD 5.1 EX English Dolby Surround SUBTITLES English Spanish CC Yes REGION 1 DISC TYPE 2 DVD-9s STUDIO New Line

That moments are grand is no question, but the final instalment of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy isn't about stories and individuals so much as it's about resolutions. The characters have ceased to evolve in any meaningful way and no significant time is given over anyway to any particular one of the principals–something sort of amazing, given that the film runs just shy of 210 minutes. The result of that lack of focus and depth is a picture comprised entirely of frankly stunning special effects set-pieces, long walks in slow-motion to predetermined destinations, and what feels like an eternity of strained conversations about arcane locations and events held in stage whisper.

An inexplicable prologue doesn't work while reminding a little of Matthew Barney's Cremaster series (really, much of the dark grotesque of Jackson's Middle-Earth reminds of Barney's work), but a nifty phantom army resurrects on a grand scale the ghosts of Jackson's own The Frighteners. The best moments of The Return of the King are those where Jackson's mad imagination runs riot: an Uruk-hai captain that looks like Charles Laughton's hunchback; a battlefield amuck with war elephants ("mumaks" in the vernacular) that recalls the desperation of the Hoth sequence of The Empire Strikes Back (itself a landmark of special effects for its time); and a glimpse at some of the ornaments of spider Shelob's lair and various orcan armor that pings off Robert A. Burns's delirious set design for Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Meanwhile, Miranda Otto's Eowyn emerges as, if not the most memorable figure in the series, at least the hero of The Return of the King.

Interesting, too, is the inescapable idea that the only genuinely convincing relationships in the film are homosexual, and that the picture could be read with profit as an escalating evolution of father relationships from low to positively Christian (mad steward Denethor and son Faramir, Frodo and Gollum, Gandalf and the hobbits, Aragorn and mankind)–but part and parcel with the oft-fascinating subtext and beautiful images is a parade of useless cameos (please, enough Cate Blanchett), de rigueur expository flashbacks, and the squandering of opportunities to locate the genuine interest in unlikely epic heroes (women and, essentially, children), rather than just pay lip service to them.

The worst moments are ported complete from the Tolkien source material (and the theatrical version of The Two Towers): the convenience of a fortuitous in-battle as little Sam storms an enemy keep by himself, the deus ex machina of giant eagles arriving at moments of crisis (in fairness, it seems as though the scene establishing their summoning has been jettisoned), the curiously limp money shot of Aragorn's grasping of his legacy, and a general narrative choppiness that defeats pacing and deadens interest for all but the most invested. Worse, the appearances of the Southrons and Easterlings seem–and in accordance with Tolkien's descriptions–African and Asiatic respectively, arrayed mercenary against the Caucasian forces of the noble "Men of the West."

The Return of the King is closer to empty spectacle than any of the previous films–a fitting conclusion, perhaps, to a ten-hour film but a movie in and of itself that has trouble finding the weight and impetus to stand alone. It feels desperate to cover every imaginable base, nowhere more so than during a ridiculous curtain call that sees Frodo mouthing our heroes' names as they saunter half-time into a sun-kissed Serrault, the picture's romantic tableaux not nearly so affecting this time around as they have been in the past. A curious product of the modern media age, the shortcomings of The Return of the King lead one inevitably to wonder if the impending extended version of the film on DVD won't, like it did for The Two Towers: EE, fashion a melancholy completeness from this mélange of sometimes intoxicating, occasionally exhilarating parts.

THE DVD
by Bill Chambers The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King comes to DVD about three months earlier than anticipated (based on the theatrical-to-home video window of the previous films), in part to capitalize on the picture's Oscar glory, but also to sate those dedicated fans who will have to wait a little longer than usual for the de rigueur Extended Edition; last week it was announced that the final leg of the DVD saga had encountered a roadblock in the form of a certain giant ape. And sate it does, at least from a technical standpoint: The 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer* is the finest for one of the film's theatrical cuts–a remarkable feat considering it's the longest instalment of the trilogy (and thus harder to squeeze onto a single-sided, dual-layered platter), though perhaps not so astonishing in light of two years having passed since The Fellowship of the Ring debuted on the format. (The equipment used to encode that first DVD has probably passed into obsolescence by now.) An even happier surprise, considering the letdown of the DD track for The Two Towers, is King's boisterous, nay, faultless DD 5.1 EX mix, which is a bona fide sleeves-flapper during the parting of Mordor's gates and the climactic Battle of Pelennor Fields.