The Return of the King (2003) Review: A Colossal Payoff

Is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King worth watching?

Yes. The Return of the King is a titanic finale that delivers both the spectacle and the emotional release the trilogy has been building towards, and it remains one of the high points of fantasy filmmaking. Peter Jackson balances enormous battle sequences with an intimate, punishing journey for two hobbits, and the combination is overwhelming in the best sense. The reservations: at 201 minutes it is very long, its final stretch lingers, and it makes little sense without the first two films.

What is The Return of the King about?

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King picks up with the fellowship scattered across Middle-earth. The Dark Lord Sauron is turning his armies on Gondor, the great kingdom of men, whose capital, Minas Tirith, is governed by its proud and increasingly unstable steward, Denethor (John Noble). Gandalf (Ian McKellen) rides there to prepare its defence, while Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) must decide whether to finally claim the kingship his bloodline entitles him to.

Far to the east, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) are creeping towards Mordor to destroy the One Ring, guided by the treacherous, split-minded creature Gollum (Andy Serkis). As the armies gather, everything depends on two exhausted hobbits whom the enemy is not even looking for.

Jackson directs from a screenplay written with Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. Shot in New Zealand, in English, it runs 201 minutes in its theatrical version and won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Battles on a scale cinema had not seen

The middle of the film is one long crescendo. The lighting of the beacons, a sequence of signal fires leaping from mountain to mountain across Howard Shore’s swelling score, is pure cinematic joy. The siege of Minas Tirith and the battle on the Pelennor Fields that follows combine thousands of digital soldiers with physical sets and stunt work in a way that still looks astonishing, and Jackson never loses track of geography or of individual characters inside the chaos.

The charge of the Rohan cavalry, led by Bernard Hill’s weary King Théoden, remains one of the great moments in action cinema, not because of its scale alone but because the film has spent two chapters making us care about the people riding.

The quieter war inside Mordor

What keeps the film from becoming a mere battle spectacle is the Frodo and Sam story, which grows darker and more intimate as the armies grow larger. Wood plays Frodo’s corrosion under the Ring’s weight with painful conviction, and Astin gives Sam a devotion that the film treats as the truest form of heroism. Their passage into the barren wastes of Mordor is exhausting in the intended way.

Serkis’s Gollum is the other marvel. The film opens with a prologue showing the character before the Ring consumed him, and the performance-capture work, joined to Serkis’s physical and vocal commitment, makes Gollum pitiable and dangerous at once. Miranda Otto’s Éowyn and Billy Boyd’s Pippin also get their best material of the trilogy.

Where the finale overstays

The chief complaint about the film is fair: once the main story has resolved, it takes a long time to say goodbye, and viewers who have not been swept up by the trilogy will feel every minute. Some subplots trimmed for the theatrical version leave small gaps, and Denethor’s descent, strongly played by Noble, is broader than the rest of the drama. These are the flaws of a film that tries to honour everything.

Who should watch The Return of the King?

It is essential for anyone who has watched The Fellowship of the Ring and the middle chapter; it is not a standalone film. Fans of fantasy and large-scale war epics will find it deeply satisfying. Plan for an evening of well over three hours, more for the extended edition. The battle violence, grotesque orcs and a giant spider make it intense for younger children; it suits most viewers from about 12 up.

Before or after, consider:

• The Two Towers, the immediate predecessor, which sets up Gollum and the war with Rohan.
• The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Jackson’s later Middle-earth finale, lighter and more uneven but set in the same world.

The verdict

The Return of the King is a massive, heartfelt conclusion that pays off years of storytelling with some of the most spectacular battle filmmaking ever staged and a genuinely moving story of friendship at its centre. It runs long and lingers at the end, but few film series have finished this well.

Rating: 4.5/5