AK's Movie Reviews: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

A startling realization struck me about halfway through The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; there was only one character in the film whose fate I cared about. And that character wasn’t even a real person it was the computer-generated creature Gollum who actually turns on the heroes of the film at the very end. I didn’t think it was possible. 

Surely I cared about the journey of the little Hobbits? Or the peril of Middle Earth? Or the fights of Gandalf and the rest of the Fellowship? But no, I realized that I only particularly felt grief about Gollum. I was very much entranced by the spectacle and epic nature of the film; the settings, the costumes, the art direction, the visuals and the over-the-top action sequences but the characters suddenly became lost for me and the spectacle became my main interest. 

That’s the kind of gamble that’s taken with a three-part trilogy consisting of three and a half hour movies. There is just SO much spectacle throughout the course of this trilogy that by the final film we forget about the nice little environment of the Hobbit Shire and the peaceful existence they had led. I had forgotten about the Fellowship and the pact they had made and the battles they fought for one another. 

What remain in the conclusion of this trilogy are dreary-looking, dirty, grimy, battle-weary characters at the end of their road and none of them seem particularly excited about getting there. The reason I had so much interest in Gollum is because he is the most multi-dimensional character in any of the films. What he does at the end of Return of the King is certainly wrong, but what has been done to him is just as cruel.