2 replies to this topic

[Jaelle]

http://www.nytimes.c...d&ex=1072155600

THE NEW YORK TIMES
December 16, 2003
MOVIE REVIEW | 'THE RETURN OF THE KING'
Triumph Tinged With Regret in Middle Earth
By ELVIS MITCHELL

After the galloping intelligence displayed in the first two parts of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, your fear may be that the director, Peter Jackson, would become cautious and unimaginative with the last episode, "The Return of the King." Look at what "The Matrix" did to the Wachowski brothers; the last two were like action movies made for CNBC.

But Mr. Jackson crushes any such fear. His "King" is a meticulous and prodigious vision made by a director who was not hamstrung by heavy use of computer special-effects imagery. A sequence in which a number of signal fires are lighted on a stretch of mountain ranges simultaneously is a towering moment; it has the majesty that every studio's opening logo shot sprains itself striving to achieve.

Mr. Jackson does take his time, but he's not sloughing off here. Rather he is building toward a more than solid conclusion. The grandiloquence that sustained the second installment, "The Two Towers," with its pounding and operatic martial fury

[Tarl_Cabot]

drool.

[Sensualist]

Double drool...