Lord of the Rings: Return of the King - Movie Review
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Lord of the Rings - Return of the King is the third part of a trilogy of movies/books. The movie follows Sam and Frodo (Sean Astin Elijiah Wood) as they travel to the dark land Mordor along with their guide Gollum (Andy Serkis). As they near the Cracks of Doom, Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) meet up with Pippin (Billy Boyd), Merry (Dominic Monaghan), Treebeard (John Rhys-Davies) and the ents at Isengard. Pippin conveintly "finds" a mysterious seeing stone, he looks into it and is revealed to Sauron. Gandalf takes Pippin to Minas Tirith for protection.
The rest of the fellowship goes back to Rohan, to help Theoden King (Bernard Hill) and Eomer (Karl Urban) muster the Rohirrim. The members of the fellowship part ways with the riders of Rohan, much to the dismay of Eowyn (Miranda Otto) to take a shortcut through the caves of the dead. The dead were haunted spirits that pledged to fight for Gondor, and were cursed when they didn't. Aragorn makes a deal with the dead, saying if they fight against Sauron, they may finally rest. The spirits accept and the fellowship takes off to over come the black ships of the corsairs, Sauron's evil pirate like men.
As this is happening Gandalf meets with Dynethor and finds that he has gone mad with the loss of his son Boromir and perhaps with Sauron's help. Once Deneathor has forsaken his living son Faramir he realizes his mistake too late and chooses to be burned alive with his son. Gandalf stops Denethor(John Noble) from killing Faramir, but cannot save Denethor from his fate. Gandalf takes over the defense of Minas Tirith.
As Minas Tirith's forces are being overwhelmed by huge armies of orcs and other fell creatures, Theoden King and the Rohirrim show up ride down many orcs. The witch king of the nazgul kills all before him. Theoden takes out the King's steed and in the process is trapped under his own. Eowyn riding "under cover" as a man rushes to save him and battle with the Witch King himself. With a little help from Merry, Eowyn slays the Lord of the Nazgul, that could not be killed by any man. The victory is not yet over because the evil men of the Harad show up with there huge elephant like oliphants. The Rohirrim are being crushed when Aragorn shows up with his army of the dead. Sauron's forces flea before them and Minas Tirith is saved.
Gandalf and Aragorn know that the battle if far from over. They devise a plan to attack Mordor when they find out from Faramir (David Wenham) where Sam and Frodo are going. They hope that their attack will destract Sauron and give Frodo and Sam time to reach the cracks of doom and finish their task.
Frodo, Gollum and Sam reach the caves of Cirith Ungol. Gollum's treachery is at last revealed as he leads them into the dark caves as a trap. Frodo is attack by Shelob, a giant spider. He is bitten and rendered unconscious. Sam takes over the quest of the ring. When he learns that Frodo was still alive, he goes to save him from the Orcs. They walk the rest of the way to the mountain and Gollum shows up again. Can Frodo save the world and destory Sauron's source of power? Can Aragorn and the forces of Minas Tirith hold on? Watch the movie to find out.
I am a big fan of the books and have found some of the movies disappointing how they strayed from the original plot. Even still I found this movie was really good. There weren't too many changes from the original story in this section. I haven't liked how in the movies a big plot between Aragorn and Arwen, but this was kept down to a minimum in this one. I didn't like how they left out the ending at the shire. Saruman's part was left out of the movie which was disappointing. Also the scenes with the orcs they left out in Mordor would have been good. Maybe in the extended version of the DVD they will put all of these things back in.
Some of my favourite scenes were the fight with the witch king and the battle in Mordor. The graphics were really good. The music was good as it has been in all the other movies. The acting got even better as characters became more comfortable in their roles.
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Angels and Elves
Return of the King at IMDB
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