Thursday, July 5, 2012

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [M]


The tension grows as the battle for Middle Earth draws ever closer. Frodo and Sam continue to wend their way towards Mordor, unaware that their guide, Gollum, is leading them astray and into fatal danger. Shortly after being reunited, Gandalf takes Pippin to Minas Tirith to convince the defeated Lord Denethor to call for Rohan’s aid in the upcoming war. And Aragorn puts aside the ranger and becomes who he was born to be with Legolas, Gimli and an army of cursed, dead soldiers by his side.

 IT ALL ENDS HERE! Most probably the most highly anticipated film of the year (when it was released obviously), The Return of the King is just EPIC! I went and saw this in the cinemas with my family when it was released and we deliberately waited for some time so we would avoid the crowds. When we finally did go and see it for the first time, there was a line waiting to get into the cinema! IT WENT ALONG THE MAIN WALL AND AROUND THE CORNER! That’s how amazing and influential and celebrated this trilogy was. Even for the Harry Potter movies, we didn’t have to cue. And then when we were finally out of the cue and in our seats watching it, we were amazed, stunned, dumfounded, spellbound! I cried. In the middle of the cinema, I cried like a child. I had not cried so hard since The Lion King when I was little, not even a decade old! 

The tension grows as the battle for Middle Earth draws ever closer. Frodo and Sam continue to wend their way towards Mordor, unaware that their guide, Gollum, is leading them astray and into fatal danger. Shortly after being reunited, Gandalf takes Pippin to Minas Tirith to convince the defeated Lord Denethor to call for Rohan’s aid in the upcoming war. And Aragorn puts aside the ranger and becomes who he was born to be with Legolas, Gimli and an army of cursed, dead soldiers by his side. 

First, I wish to draw more attention to the geniuses who worked in art design, set design, and construction because their achievements cannot go unnoticed. MINAS TIRITH! Minas Tirith was utterly spellbinding and then the work of the special effect people during the penultimate battle, wow magic was created. The special effects of the battle sequences were absolutely breathtaking and gut-busting. I simply cannot describe in words the awesome power that the sets and special effects hold in these movies. I just can’t. 
This is the film where the emotional stories and tensions really came into play and we have to give special applause to Miranda Otto and Sean Astin: Sean Astin’s performance during a very emotional scene early in the film was what reduced me to tears in the cinema. 
The stunts get even better and the lighter comedy that crept into the script in The Two Towers is back again with a vengeance, again manifesting itself in the friendship between Legolas and Gimli. Not only does the light-hearted comedy creep into the script to relieve some of the emotional tension, but there are also some hugely empowering war speeches: be sure to pay rapt attention to Theoden’s war speech before charging on the army of Mordor, it’s absolutely sensational! 
Starring Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Orlando Bloom, Jonathan Rhys-Davies, Viggo Mortensen, Sir Ian McKellen, John Noble, Bernard Hill, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Liv Tyler, Miranda Otto, Andy Serkis, whose face we actually get to see at the beginning of the film, Karl Urban, David Wenham, and Ian Holm, The Return of the King is a gargantuan film epic that is filled with knockout special effects, amazing sets, dazzling costumes, action, romance, comedy, war, drama, peril, and multiple endings, seriously there are close to three endings before it actually says The End. It’s amazing, it’s breathtaking, it’s spellbinding, it’s gargantuan; IT’S AN EPIC CINEMATIC ACHIEVEMENT!

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