Psycho's Movie Reviews #427: Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (2003)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a 2003 epic fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson, based on the third volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The film is the final entry in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and was produced by Barrie M. Osborne, Jackson and Fran Walsh, from a screenplay by Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Jackson. Continuing the plot of The Two Towers, Frodo, Sam and Gollum are making their final way toward Mount Doom in Mordor in order to destroy the One Ring, unaware of Gollum's true intentions, while Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and the rest are joining forces together against Sauron and his legions in Minas Tirith. It was preceded by The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and The Two Towers (2002).

The film features an ensemble cast including Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Bernard Hill, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Miranda Otto, David Wenham, Karl Urban, John Noble, Andy Serkis, Ian Holm, and Sean Bean. The Return of the King was financed and distributed by American studio New Line Cinema, but filmed and edited entirely in Jackson's native New Zealand, concurrently with the other two parts of the trilogy. It premiered on 1 December 2003 at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington and was theatrically released on 17 December 2003 in the United States, and on 18 December 2003 in New Zealand. The film was acclaimed by both critics and audiences, who considered it to be a landmark in filmmaking and the fantasy film genre, with praise for the visual effects, performances, action sequences, direction, screenplay, musical score, costume design and emotional depth. It grossed over $1.1 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2003 and the second highest-grossing film of all time at the time of its release, as well as the highest-grossing film released by New Line Cinema.

Like the other two entries in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, The Return of the King is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. The film received numerous accolades; at the 76th Academy Awards, it won all 11 Oscars for which it was nominated, including Best Picture, tying with Ben-Hur and Titanic as the movie with the most Oscar wins. It also became the second film series whose entries have all won Best Visual Effects, after the original Star Wars Trilogy.

Plot

The hobbit Sméagol is fishing with his cousin Déagol, who discovers the One Ring in the river. Sméagol's mind is ensnared by the Ring, and he kills his cousin for it. Increasingly corrupted physically and mentally, he retreats into the Misty Mountains and becomes known as Gollum.

Centuries later, during the War of the Ring, Gandalf leads Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and King Théoden of Rohan to Isengard, where they reunite with Merry and Pippin. Gandalf retrieves Saruman's palantír, and the group returns to Edoras to celebrate their victory at Helm's Deep. Pippin looks into the palantír, seeing Sauron and a burning tree. Gandalf deduces that the enemy plans to attack Gondor's capital Minas Tirith; he rides there to warn Gondor's steward Denethor. Pippin, who accompanies him, swears fealty to Denethor, whose now-dead heir Boromir had saved his life;[b] on Gandalf's instruction, he triggers the lighting of the beacons, which call for help from Rohan.

Frodo, who carries the Ring, and Sam continue their journey towards Mordor, unaware that Gollum, now their guide, plans to betray them and take the Ring for himself. The trio witness the Witch-king of Angmar, lord of the nine Nazgûl, setting off towards Gondor with his army of Orcs. Gollum conspires to frame Sam for eating food supplies and desiring the Ring; influenced by the growing power of the Ring, Frodo is taken in by the deception, and orders Sam to go home. Gollum then tricks Frodo into venturing into the lair of the giant spider Shelob. Frodo narrowly escapes and confronts Gollum, who falls down a chasm after a scuffle. Shelob discovers, paralyzes, and binds Frodo, but is wounded and driven away by a returning Sam, who, mourning Frodo's apparent death, takes the Ring. Sam realizes his mistake when a group of Orcs takes Frodo captive, but manages to rescue Frodo as the Orcs fight among themselves. Now inside Mordor, the hobbits continue towards Mount Doom, their destination.

As King Théoden gathers his army, Elrond tells Aragorn that Arwen is dying, having refused to leave Middle-earth. Elrond gives Aragorn Andúril, reforged from the shards of King Elendil's sword Narsil, and urges him to commit to claiming Gondor's throne, to which he is heir. Joined by Legolas and Gimli, Aragorn travels the Paths of the Dead, and pledges to release the ghosts there from their curse should they come to Gondor's aid. Meanwhile, Faramir, who was earlier overwhelmed and driven back to Minas Tirith by the Witch-king, is gravely wounded in a suicide charge; believing his son to be dead, Denethor falls into madness. Gandalf marshals the defenders, but the huge Orc army breaks into the city. Denethor attempts to burn himself and Faramir on a pyre, but Pippin alerts Gandalf and they rescue Faramir. Denethor, set ablaze and in agony, jumps to his death.

Théoden arrives and leads his army against the Orcs. Despite initial success against Orcs in the ensuing battle, they are decimated by the Oliphaunt-riding Haradrim and the Witch-king mortally wounds Théoden; however, his niece Éowyn slays the Witch-king with Merry's help. Théoden dies in his niece's arms. Aragorn then arrives with his Army of the Dead, who overcome Sauron's forces and win the battle. Their oath fulfilled, the Dead are released from their curse. Aragorn decides to march on Mordor to distract Sauron from Frodo, now extremely weak, and Sam; all of Sauron's remaining forces march to meet Aragorn's diversion, allowing the hobbits to reach Mount Doom. Gollum, who survived his earlier fall, attacks them, but Frodo still manages to enter the mountain. There, he succumbs to the Ring's power, putting it on his finger, but Gollum manages to bite off his finger and reclaim it. They struggle together and both fall off the ledge. Frodo manages to cling on, and is pulled up by Sam, but Gollum falls and dies; the Ring, which fell with him, disintegrates in the lava. Mount Doom erupts as Sauron meets his demise, while Aragorn's army emerges victorious as its enemies flee.

Gandalf rescues the hobbits with the help of eagles, and the surviving Fellowship is happily reunited in Minas Tirith. Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor and marries Arwen. The Hobbits return home to the Shire, where Sam marries Rosie Cotton. A few years later, Frodo departs Middle-earth for the Undying Lands with his uncle Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Elves. He leaves Sam the Red Book of Westmarch, which details their adventures. Sam returns to the Shire, where he embraces Rosie and their children.

Production

Design

Middle-earth as envisioned by Jackson was primarily designed by Alan Lee and John Howe, former Tolkien illustrators, and created by Weta Workshop, who handled all the trilogy's weapons, armour, miniatures, prosthetics, and creatures, as well as the Art Department which built the sets. Richard Taylor headed Weta, while Grant Major and Dan Hennah organized the planning and building respectively.

The city of Minas Tirith, glimpsed briefly in both the previous two films, is seen fully in this film, and with it the Gondorian civilization. The enormous soundstage was built at Dry Creek Quarry, outside Wellington, from the Helm's Deep set. That set's gate became Minas Tirith's second, while the Hornburg exterior became that of the Extended Edition's scene where Gandalf confronts the Witch-king. New structures included the 8m tall Gate, with broken and unbroken versions, with a working opening and closing mechanism, with its engravings inspired by the Baptistry of San Giovanni. There were also four levels of streets with heraldic motifs for every house, as inspired by Siena.

There was also the Citadel, the exterior of which was in the Stone Street Studios backlot, using forced perspective. It contains the withered White Tree, built from polystyrene by Brian Massey and the Greens Department with real branches, influenced by ancient and gnarled Lebanese olive trees. The interior was within a three-story former factory in Wellington, and colourwise is influenced by Charlemagne's Chapel, with a throne for Denethor carved from stone and polystyrene statues of past kings. The Gondorian armour is designed to represent an evolution from the Númenóreans of the first film's prologue, with a simplified sea bird motif. 16th-century Italian and German armour served as inspiration, while civilians wear silver and blacks as designed by Ngila Dickson, continuing an ancient/medieval Mediterranean Basin look.

Minas Morgul, the Staircase and Tower of Cirith Ungol as well as Shelob's Lair were designed by Howe, with the Morgul road using forced perspective into a bluescreened miniature. Howe's design of Minas Morgul was inspired from the experience of having a wisdom tooth pulled out: in the same way, the Orcs have put their twisted designs on to a former Gondorian city. Cirith Ungol was based on Tolkien's design, but when Richard Taylor felt it as "boring", it was redesigned with more tipping angles. The interior set, like Minas Tirith, was built as a few multiple levels that numerous camera takes would suggest a larger structure.

The third film introduces the enormous spider Shelob. Shelob was designed in 1999, with the body based on a tunnel web spider and the head with numerous growths selected by Peter Jackson's children from one of many sculpts. Jackson himself took great joy in planning the sequence, being an arachnophobe himself. Shelob's Lair was inspired by sandstone and sculpted from the existing Caverns of Isengard set.

The Return of the King also brings into focus the Dead Men of Dunharrow and the evil Haradrim from the south of Middle-earth, men who ride the mûmakil. The Dead Men have a Celtic influence, as well as lines and symmetry to reflect their morbid state, while their underground city is influenced by Petra. The Haradrim were highly influenced by African culture, until Philippa Boyens expressed concern over the possibility of offensiveness, so the finished characters instead bear influence from Kiribati, in terms of weaving armour from bamboo, and the Aztecs, in use of jewellery. Also built was a single dead mûmak. Other minor cultures include the Corsairs, with an exotic, swarthy look, and the Grey Havens, Elven structures adapted to stone, with influence from J. M. W. Turner paintings.

Principal Photography

The Return of the King was shot during 2000, though Astin's coverage from Gollum's attempt to separate Frodo and Sam was filmed on 24 November 1999, when floods in Queenstown interrupted the focus on The Fellowship of the Ring. Some of the earliest scenes shot for the film were in fact shot last. Hobbiton, home of the Hobbits, was shot in January 2000 with early scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring, with the exterior shot at a Matamata farm, while interior scenes were shot at Stone Street Studios in Wellington, shared with the Grey Havens sequence. Due to the high emotions of filming the scene, the cast were in despair when they were required to shoot it three times, due to a continuity flaw in Sean Astin's costume, and then negatives producing out-of-focus reels. Also shared with the previous films was the Rivendell interior in May.

The Battle of the Black Gate was filmed in April at the Rangipo Desert, a former minefield. New Zealand soldiers were hired as extras while guides were on the lookout for unexploded mines. Also a cause for concern were Monaghan and Boyd's scale doubles during a charge sequence. In the meantime, Wood, Astin and Serkis filmed at Mount Ruapehu for the Mount Doom exteriors. In particular, they spent two hours shooting Sam lifting Frodo on to his back with cross-camera coverage.

Scenes shot in June were the Paths of the Dead across various locations, including Putangirua Pinnacles. In July the crew shot some Shelob scenes, and in August and September time was spent on the scenes in Isengard. Monaghan and Boyd tried numerous takes of their entrance, stressing the word "weed" as they smoked pipe-weed. Christopher Lee spent his part of his scene mostly alone, though McKellen and Hill arrived on the first day for a few lines to help.

Edoras exteriors were shot in October. The Ride of the Rohirrim, where Théoden leads the charge into the Orc army, was filmed in Twizel with 150 extras on horseback. The Battle of the Pelennor Fields has more extensive use of computer-generated imagery, in contrast to the more extensive use of live action in the Battle of Helm's Deep in the second film. Also filmed were the attempts by Faramir to recapture Osgiliath, as were scenes in the city itself. At this point production was very hectic, with Jackson moving around ten units per day, and production finally wrapped on the Minas Tirith sets, as well as second units shooting parts of the siege. Just as the Hobbit actors' first scene was hiding from a Ringwraith under a tree, their last scene was the bluescreened reaction shot of the inhabitants of Minas Tirith bowing to them.

Pick-Ups

The 2003 pick-ups were filmed in the Wellington studio car park, with many parts of sets and blue-screens used to finish off scenes, which the design team had to work 24 hours to get the right sets ready for a particular day. The shoot continued for two months, and became an emotional time of farewells for the cast and crew. The film has the most extensive list of re-shoots given for the trilogy. Jackson took his time to re-shoot Aragorn's coronation, rushed into a single day under second unit director Geoff Murphy on 21 December 2000. Jackson also re-shot scenes in and around Mount Doom, and Théoden's death, right after Bernard Hill was meant to wrap.

There was also the new character of Gothmog. This was a major new design addition for the film, as Jackson felt the Mordor Orcs were "pathetic" compared to the Uruk-hai of the second film after watching assembly cuts, and thus Weta Workshop created grotesque new "über Orcs" as antagonists for the audience to focus on. Christian Rivers also redesigned the Witch-king and all of his scenes were re-shot, because of confusion from non-readers over whether or not Sauron was on the battlefield.

With the positive response to Bloom, Legolas was given a fight with a mûmak, and Howard Shore also appeared in a cameo during Legolas and Gimli's drinking game at Edoras. The final scenes shot were Aragorn escaping the Skull avalanche, and Frodo finishing his book. The cast also received various props associated with their characters, although John Rhys-Davies burned his final Gimli prosthetic. Viggo Mortensen headbutted the stunt team goodbye. Pick-ups ended on 27 June 2003.

Scenes shot afterwards included various live-action shots of Riders for the Battle of the Pelennor Fields and a reaction shot of Serkis as Gollum finally realizes Frodo intends to destroy the Ring, shot in Jackson's house. For the Extended DVD, in March 2004 Jackson created a few shots of skulls rolling over for the avalanche scene; this was the final piece of footage ever shot for the trilogy, and Jackson noted that it must be the first time a director had shot scenes for a film after it had already won the Oscar.

Editing

Post-production began in November 2002, with the completion of the 4½ hour assembly cut of the film that Annie Collins had been completing over 2001 and 2002, from 4-hour dailies. For example, Théoden leading the charge went from 150 minutes of takes to a finished 90 seconds. Jackson reunited with long-time collaborator Jamie Selkirk to edit the final film. Like The Two Towers, they would have to deal with multiple storylines, and Jackson paid attention to each storyline at a time before deciding where to intercut. Most importantly they spent three weeks working on the last 45 minutes of the film, for appropriate intercutting and leaving out scenes such as the Mouth of Sauron, and the fates of characters like Legolas, Gimli, Éowyn and Faramir. The film inherited scenes originally planned to go into the second film, including the reforging of Narsil, Gollum's backstory, and Saruman's exit. But the Saruman scene posed a structural problem: killing off the second film's villain when the plot has Sauron as the main villain. Despite pick-ups and dubs, the scene was cut, causing controversy with fans and Saruman actor Christopher Lee, as well as a petition to restore the scene. Lee nonetheless contributed to the DVDs and was at the Copenhagen premiere, although he said he would never understand the reason for the cut and his relationship with Jackson was chilly. They would, however, later reconcile upon Lee's casting in Jackson's Hobbit films. Jackson only had a lock on 5 out of 10 reels, and had to churn out 3 reels in 3 weeks to help finish the film. It was finally completed on 12 November 2003. Jackson never had a chance to view the film in full due to the hectic schedule, and only saw the film from beginning to end on 1 December at the Wellington premiere; according to Elijah Wood, his response was "yup, it's good, pretty good".

Visual Effects

The Return of the King contains 1,489 visual effect shots, nearly three times the number from the first film and almost twice that of the second. As with the two previous films, Jim Rygiel served as the visual effects supervisor. Visual effects work began with Alan Lee and Mark Lewis compositing various photographs of New Zealand landscape to create the digital arena of the Pelennor Fields in November 2002. Jackson and Christian Rivers used computers to plan the enormous battle up until February 2003, when the shots were shown to Weta Digital. To their astonishment, 60 planned shots had gone up to 250, and 50,000 characters were now 200,000. Nevertheless, they pressed on, soon delivering 100 shots a week, 20 a day, and as the deadline neared within the last two months, often working until 2 am.

For the battle, they recorded 450 motions for the MASSIVE digital horses (though deaths were animated), and also had to deal with late additions in the film, such as Trolls bursting through Minas Tirith's gates as well as the creatures that pull Grond to the gate, and redoing a shot of two mûmakil Éomer takes down that had originally taken six months in two days. On a similar note of digital creatures, Shelob's head sculpture was scanned by a Canadian company for 10 times more detail than Weta had previously been able to capture.

Like the previous films, there are also extensive morphs between digital doubles for the actors. This time, there was Sam falling off Shelob, where the morph takes place as Astin hits the ground. Legolas attacking a mûmak required numerous transitions to and fro, and Gollum's shots of him having recovered the One Ring and falling into the Crack of Doom were fully animated. For the latter scene, as well as the scene in which Mount Doom erupts and Frodo and Sam escape from the volcano, the help of the company Next Limit Technologies and their software RealFlow was required to simulate the lava. The King of the Dead is played by an actor in prosthetics, and his head occasionally morphs to a more skull-like digital version, depending on the character's mood. The Mouth of Sauron also had his mouth enlarged 200% for unsettling effect.

The Return of the King also has practical effects. In the Pyre of Denethor sequence, as the Steward of Gondor throws Pippin out of the Tomb, John Noble threw a size double named Fon onto a prostrate Billy Boyd, who immediately pushed his head into camera to complete the illusion. A few burning torches were also reflected off a plate of glass and into the camera for when Gandalf's horse Shadowfax kicks Denethor onto the pyre. Because of Jackson's requirement for complete representation of his fantasy world, numerous miniatures were built, such as 1:72 scale miniature of Minas Tirith, which rises 7m high and is 6.5m in diameter. 1:14 scale sections of the city were also required, and the Extended Edition scene of the collapsing City of the Dead has 80,000 small skulls, amounting in total to a single cubic meter. The miniatures team concluded in November with the Black Gate, after 1000 days of shooting, and the final digital effects shot done was the Ring's destruction, on 25 November.

Sound Effects

The Sound department spent the early part of the year searching for the right sounds. A Tasmanian devil was used to create Shelob's shriek, which in turn gave inspiration for Weta's animators, while the mûmakil is the beginning and end of a lion roar. Human screams and a donkey screech were mixed into Sauron's fall and broken glass was used for the collapsing sounds. For missile trading during Minas Tirith's siege, construction workers dropped actual 2 ton stone blocks previously lifted by a construction crane. Mixing began at a new studio on 15 August, although unfinished building work caused some annoyances. The mixers finished on 15 November, after three months of non-stop work.

Score

The music was composed by Howard Shore, who previously composed the first two parts of the trilogy. Shore watched the assembly cut of the film, and had to write seven minutes of music per day to keep up with the schedule. The score sees the full introduction of the Gondor theme, originally heard during Boromir's speeches at the Council of Elrond in The Fellowship of the Ring and at Osgiliath in The Two Towers' Extended Edition. Shore also used the Gondor theme with the new ascending coda (which is unique to this film) in his score for the trailer of the film.

The score features the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Voices, the London Oratory School Schola and featured vocal soloists. The score is the most expansive of the three: scoring effectively the entire movie length, not including additional music written for the trailer and various alternate versions released to the public. It also uses the biggest forces in the series: sections of the score call for two sets of timpani, eight trumpets (and possibly a similar increase in the size of the horn, trombone and tuba section, as well), 85 singers in the mixed choir with additional players for all-male and all-female sections, over fifty in the boy choir and many instrumentalist "bands" playing Celtic and eastern instruments such as tin whistle or pan flute, on stage or off of it. One piece of music required an instrument invented and crafted especially for the film: a fiddle with four pairs of strings instead of single strings.

Actors Billy Boyd, Viggo Mortensen and Liv Tyler also contributed to the film's music. Boyd sings on screen as Faramir charges towards Osgiliath, Mortensen sings on screen as he is crowned King, and in the Extended Edition Tyler sings as Aragorn heals Éowyn.

Renée Fleming, Ben Del Maestro, Sissel Kyrkjebø and James Galway also contribute to the soundtrack as featured soloists. Fleming sings as Arwen has a vision of her son and when Gollum recovers the One Ring. Del Maestro sings when Gandalf lights his staff to save fleeing Gondorian soldiers from Osgiliath as the Nazgûl attack and as the eagles arrive at the Black Gates. Galway plays the flute and whistle as Frodo and Sam climb Mount Doom and as they return to the shire. Sissel sings "Asea Aranion", which was originally meant to score the Houses of Healing scene. The end title song, "Into the West", was composed by Shore with lyrics by Fran Walsh. Annie Lennox (formerly of Eurythmics) performed it and also received song writing credit. The song was partially inspired by the premature death from cancer of a young New Zealand filmmaker named Cameron Duncan who had befriended Peter Jackson.

Release/Reception/Box Office

After two years of attention and acclaim since the release of The Fellowship of the Ring, audience and critical anticipation for the final entry was extremely high. The world premiere was held in Wellington's Embassy Theatre, on 1 December 2003, and was attended by the director and many of the stars. It was estimated that over 100,000 people lined the streets, more than a quarter of the city's population.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, The Return of the King holds an approval rating of 93% based on 275 reviews, with an average rating of 8.70/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Visually breath-taking and emotionally powerful, The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King is a moving and satisfying conclusion to a great trilogy." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, gives the film a score of 94 out of 100 based on 41 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a rare average grade of "A+" on an A+ to F scale, the highest grade in the trilogy.

Like its two predecessors, The Return of the King was released to universal critical acclaim. Alan Morrison of Empire gave the film a perfect score of five stars. In his review, he called the film "the resounding climax to a landmark in cinema history" and praised how Peter Jackson had "kept the momentum of the series rolling on and on through the traditionally 'difficult' middle part and 'weak' finale, delivering a climax to the story that's neater and more affecting than what Tolkien managed on the printed page." Morrison also mentioned how fans of the films "who have walked beside these heroes every step of the way on such a long journey deserve the emotional pay-off as well as the action peaks, and they will be genuinely touched as the final credits roll." Elvis Mitchell for The New York Times lauded the acting, the craft of the technical crew, and Jackson's direction, describing The Return of the King as a "a meticulous and prodigious vision made by a director who was not hamstrung by heavy use of computer special-effects imagery." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying that it is "such a crowning achievement, such a visionary use of all the tools of special effects, such a pure spectacle, that it can be enjoyed even by those who have not seen the first two films." Talking about the whole trilogy, Ebert said that he admired it "more as a whole than in its parts", and that The Return of the King certified The Lord of the Rings as "a work of bold ambition in a time of cinematic timidity". In his review for The Times, James Christopher praised The Return of the King as "everything a Ring fan could possibly wish for, and much more", and described The Lord of the Rings as "the greatest film trilogy ever mounted, with some of the most amazing action sequences committed to celluloid". Nev Pierce for the BBC gave the film five stars out of five, judging it to be the best chapter of the trilogy, since it combined "the 'ooh' factor of Fellowship with the zippy action of Towers". Pierce described The Return of the King as "Majestic, moving, and immense", and "an astonishing piece of storytelling." Philip French, reviewing it for The Observer, lauded the narrative force, the battle scenes, the language, and the visual style of the film, which he related to "the swirling battle paintings of Albrecht Altdorfer" and "Claude Lorraine's elegiac paintings of maritime departures inspired by classical poets." French wrote about the whole trilogy "Jackson's Lord of the Rings is indeed a very fine achievement, moving, involving and, to many people, even inspiring. It redeems the debased cinematic notion of the epic."

In her review for Entertainment Weekly, Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the film an A grade, and wrote "The conclusion of Peter Jackson’s masterwork is passionate and literate, detailed and expansive, and it’s conceived with a risk-taking flair for old-fashioned movie magic at its most precious as he has done throughout, the director paces scenes of action, intimacy, and even panoramic, geographical grandeur with the control of a superb choreographer.". Schwarzbaum also said of the whole series "I can’t think of another film trilogy that ends in such glory, or another monumental work of sustained storytelling that surges ahead with so much inventiveness and ardour." Richard Corliss of Time named The Return of the King the best film of the year and described the whole trilogy as "The film event of the millennium". Joe Morgenstern, for The Wall Street Journal, wrote "Never has a filmmaker aimed higher, or achieved more. The third and last instalment of the screen epic based on J.R.R. Tolkien's literary classic redefines -- steeply upward -- the very notion of a major motion picture." Peter Bradshaw, who had been less enthusiastic about the first two chapters of the trilogy, gave The Return of the King four stars out of five in his review for The Guardian, commenting "I started the series an atheist and finished an agnostic". Bradshaw wrote of the film "Technically it really is superb", and commented "Hours after watching the film, I can close my eyes and see those incredible battle scenes pulsing and throbbing in my skull. Maybe Kurosawa's battles will one day be described as proto-Jacksonian".

The most common criticism of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was its running time, particularly the epilogue; even rave reviews for the film commented on its length. Joel Siegel of Good Morning America said in his review for the film (which he gave an 'A'): "If it didn't take forty-five minutes to end, it'd be my best picture of the year. As it is, it's just one of the great achievements in film history." Retrospectively, the CNN criticized the Army of the Dead's appearance, rapidly ending the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, while still ranking the battle among the greatest screen battles ever. A negative review was written for the Evening Standard by Antonia Quirke, who criticized Jackson's direction, saying that there was "not much personality behind the camera here, merely rampant enthusiasm". Quirke also criticized Viggo Mortensen in the title role, writing "Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn is the good king of the title, and while the actor may look fetching in a crown and cloak, he doesn't have half of the gravitas of Sean Bean's Boromir in the first film."

In February 2004, a few months following release, the film was voted eighth on Empire's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, compiled from readers' top ten lists. This forced the magazine to abandon its policy of only allowing films being older than a year to be eligible. In 2007, Total Film named The Return of the King the third best film of the past decade (Total Film's publication time), behind The Matrix and Fight Club.

The film earned $377,027,325 in the United States and Canada and $763,654,686 in other countries for a worldwide total of $1,140,682,011. In the weekend of February 20-22 of 2004, the film crossed the $1 billion mark, making it the second film in history to do so, after Titanic. Worldwide, it is the 24th highest-grossing film of all time when not adjusted for inflation, the highest-grossing film of 2003, the second highest-grossing film of the 2000s, the highest-grossing entry in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the highest-grossing film ever to be released by New Line Cinema. It held the record as Time Warner's highest-grossing film worldwide for eight years until it was surpassed by Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 in 2011. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film had sold over 61 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run.

In the US and Canada, it is the 27th highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing 2003 film, and the highest-grossing entry in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The film set an opening Wednesday record with $34,450,834. This record was first surpassed by Spider-Man 2 and ranks as the seventh largest Wednesday opening. The film opened a day earlier for a midnight showing and accounted for about $8 million. This was nearly twice the first-day total of The Fellowship of the Ring — which earned $18.2 million on its opening day in 2001 — as well as a significant increase over The Two Towers — which earned $26.1 million on its debut in 2002. Part of the grosses came from the Trilogy Tuesday event, in which the Extended Editions of the two previous films were played on 16 December before the first midnight screening. It went on to make an opening weekend of $72,629,713. With a total gross of $125.1 million, the film had the biggest five-day Wednesday opening of all time, surpassing the previous record held by Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. The next year, this record would be beaten by Shrek 2. Its Friday-Sunday opening weekend was a record-high for December (first surpassed by I Am Legend). The film also set single-day records for Christmas Day and New Year's Day (both first surpassed by Meet the Fockers).

Outside the US and Canada, it is the 17th highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing 2003 filmed the highest-grossing film of the series. On its first day (Wednesday, 17 December 2003), the film earned $23.5 million from 19 countries and it set an opening-weekend record outside the US and Canada with $125.9 million during the five-day weekend as a whole. It set opening-day records in thirteen of them, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Switzerland, Scandinavia (as well as separately in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark), Mexico, Chile and Puerto Rico. It set opening-weekend records in the United Kingdom ($26.5 million in five days), Germany, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland. In Singapore, it surpassed Finding Nemo to become the country's top grossing film. In New Zealand, where filming took place, the film set opening day, opening weekend, single-day, Friday gross, Saturday gross and Sunday gross records with $1.7 million in four days.

The substantial increase in initial box office totals caused optimistic studio executives to forecast that The Return of the King would surpass The Two Towers in total earnings. If this proved to be true, then this would be the first blockbuster trilogy for each successive film to earn more at the box office than its predecessor, when all three films were blockbuster successes. The Return of the King has helped The Lord of the Rings franchise to become the highest-grossing motion picture trilogy worldwide of all time with over $2.9 billion beating other notable series such as the original Star Wars Trilogy, and became New Line's highest grossing release.

Through re-releases in 2005, 2011, 2017, 2020 and 2021, the film has grossed an additional $818,580 in the United States and Canada, and $4,530,321 overseas for a combined total of $5,348,901. This brings overall earnings to $377,845,905 domestic and $768,185,005 international for a worldwide total of $1,146,030,912.

These figures do not include income from DVD sales, TV rights, etc. It has been estimated that the gross income from non-box office sales and merchandise has been at least equal to the box office for all three films. If this is so, the total gross income for the trilogy would be in the region of $6 billion following an investment of $300 million ($426 million including marketing costs).

Budget $94 million

Box office $1.146 billion

My Review

The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King is by far the most moving, inspirational and epic of the three parts in Peter Jackson's take on Tolkien's fantasy masterpiece. After proving that this trilogy can carry the weight of a truly enormous body of text with The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, Jackson has shown that nothing is impossible anymore when being brought to film, and that fantasy can be surreal, but grounded to reality.

I saw this film at 8:00 PM, and missed school the following day -- exactly similar to The Two Towers when it was released. After seeing The Return of the King I was speechless. Never before had a film made such an impact on me as this conclusion did, and now with it completed, The Lord of the Rings is truly the best of the best.

Jackson has treated this trilogy as one film, following to Tolkien's linear time-line, and not the way the books were written, which makes this a film that flows and never loses track of pacing. The dialogue is emotional, be it the speech between Gandalf and Pippin before the gates of Minas Tirith, or inspirational, such as the rousing deliveries by Theoden and Aragorn. The vast emotion makes this a film for the ages. Following our heroes adventure since film one, we have grown compassion for each and everyone of them. Sam's devotion to Frodo is something that can inspire, and the eu-catastrophe is fully used here once again, because just as it seems that all hope has been lost, it shines through the void and victory is achieved. If one were to fear that the ending would feel like there was no closure, then have none, because The Return of the King has a 20-minute denouement that goes as far as four-years into the future, and the ending on the shores of the Grey Havens brought me to tears.

The special effects are nothing short of amazing. The blend of miniatures/bigatures and CGI is believable beyond comprehension, and the addition of New Zealand locales adds something beyond some peoples' wildest dreams. The level of detail on Minas Tirith is something no one has ever seen before, the massive armies sunder speakers as war erupts, and we see the Mumakil and the Fell Beasts in full fruition, as hinted in The Two Towers. What could've seem fatal, as cinematic history has shown before, is the introduction of Shelob the spider. The special effects team has created the most memorable spider in film history. She terrifies and drops jaws at the realism of such a beast.

The tension for the siege on Minas Tirith is so highly anticipated, that the filmmakers have completely satisfied every expectation to how epic it could've been. The scope is just extraordinary. The battle of the Pelennor Fields is so huge in the book, yet it has been fully realized in Jackson's film. The final stand at the Black Gate is so emotional involving, it's hard to think that any action could top what was previously seen, but it is done so with vision beyond imagination.

Howard Shore's music is also some of the most impressive and beautiful orchestration ever done for film. Besting its predecessors, The Return of the King's score is pure genius. From the new theme for Gondor, to the moving Into the West, Shore's composition sweeps and soars. Now that each of the three films' complete recordings have been released, I strongly urge a fan of the music to buy them, because they really are the best of the best.

The acting even surpasses the first two, having the evolution of each character add to the dramatic effect, be it the loss of a life, or the triumph over evil. Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn is like a Godsend. Sean Astin steals nearly every scene he is in as Sam, making us hope he helps Frodo get rid of the Ring of Power. Once again, Andy Serkis provides a stirring and great performance as Smeagol/Gollum. The full weight of the Ring is realized in this film, and Elijah Wood makes us see his struggle like the Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers only hinted upon.

Overall, The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King is remarkable. The battles are amazing, never making the film drag, and always heightening the tension. From the acting to the sound editing, this film delivers in what it promises, and that is the supreme motion picture of our lifetime, and many more years to come. 10/10!!!!!