Let’s end the suspense: The Return of the King is really good. Go see it.
But if you need a quick Tolkien fix, read on.
The Return of the King begins with a portrayal of addiction, appropriately enough. The opening scene is a flashback to the day when Gollum came upon the One Ring. The very first image moviegoers see is a close-up shot of a worm. That’s a nifty idea: Gollum’s birth name is Trahald, which means “burrower” or “worm” in one of Middle-Earth’s languages. Only obsessive Tolkienites can possibly know this piece of trivia, because we’ve read Appendix F in the book. Little touches like this have made the films endearing.
At any rate, Gollum appears a perfectly healthy hobbit when his fishing partner discovers the Ring at the bottom of a river. Gollum demands the Ring for himself and murders to get it. Then we watch the little golden band destroy him as he descends into the pathetic creature we first met last year in The Two Towers. Before our eyes, he becomes a wastrel who shivers and shakes like a junkie. The Ring is his drug.
If the theme of Tolkien’s book must be stated in two words, it might be: Power corrupts. Before power can corrupt, however, it must addict, and that’s exactly what we watch it do to this deformed companion of Frodo and Sam.
Next we see Frodo, and we remember that Gollum once looked as he did. But we know the Ring is gnawing at his soul as well.
Other observations about The Return of the King:
‐Director Peter Jackson’s vision of Rohan remains superb, as a blended Anglo-Saxon horse culture. In The Return of the King, there’s a fine moment when Theoden raises his mug in a mead hall and declares, “Hail the victorious dead!” It’s like an outtake from Beowulf.
‐Minas Tirith, with its buildings of white and people in black, is at once more civilized than Rohan and culturally colder. This is just as Tolkien would have wanted it.
‐The orcs still look dastardly. They attack Osgiliath across water, in boats that recall the D-Day landings.
‐The New Zealand scenery continues to be a highlight. Let’s be glad the movies got made when they did. I recently came across this item in The Economist: “When Mr. Jackson decided to make his trilogy here, the New Zealand dollar cost 41 American cents. It now costs 64 cents. Off the record, even sources close to Mr. Jackson concede that today’s exchange rate would probably be enough to stop ‘Lord of the Rings’ being made in New Zealand.”
‐We all know Aragorn is supposed to settle down with Arwen, but I found myself hoping he’d hook up with Eowyn, played by Miranda Otto. Eowyn is a more interesting character and Otto is a fine actress. I’m not sure if the problem with Arwen is Liv Tyler’s sterility, a challenging script, or a bit of both.
‐When Merry puts on a combat helmet before riding to Minas Tirith, he looks like Michael Dukakis aboard a tank. At least Merry does some real fighting.
‐The assault on Minas Tirith is the film’s highlight–especially if you like drum-beating cave trolls, fire-breathing battering rams, and catapult duels. And who doesn’t?
‐We caught a glimpse of the Oliphaunts in The Two Towers, but here we see them in full action. Their battle owes something to The Empire Strikes Back, when the AT-ATs land on ice-planet Hoth. I’ve always thought that was the best part of the Star Wars trilogy, and it works pretty well here, too.
‐The Dead Men of Dunharrow, summoned by Aragorn at a moment of crisis, look like they stepped off the set of Eddie Murphy’s haunted-house flick. In other words, they are something of a disappointment. They also fight at the Battle of Pelennor Fields–decisively. This is not what happens in the book, though having them do the work of the southern Gondorians is perhaps a necessary shortcut in a long movie.
‐Tolkien’s worldview continues to find a place in the script. “I didn’t think it would end this way,” says Pippin, at a moment when all seems lost. “End? No, the journey doesn’t end here,” replies Gandalf. “There’s another path, one that we all must take. They grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back and it will change to silver grass and then you see it.” Pippin: “See what?” Gandalf, smiling: “White shores and beyond them, a far green country under a swift sunrise.” Then the cave trolls burst in and fighting resumes.
‐The language is refreshingly un-PC. “The time has come for the dominion of men,” says Galadriel, toward the end. Note how she doesn’t say “the dominion of humanity.” The movie occasionally nods at modern feminism, but it refuses to make any galling compromises.
‐In the book, moments after the climax, Frodo utters a little speech that helps explain Gollum’s purpose: “Do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him! For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over.” These words ought to be in the film, but they’re not. I hope they’re on the extended DVD version.
‐Frodo says all is over, but he’s wrong. The book’s denoument is not short, and neither is the movie’s. There is plenty of wrapping up to do: farewells, leavetakings, hugs all around–”many partings,” to use Tolkien’s phrase. I attended an advance screening full of fans–the sort of people most willing to put up with the extra minutes–and I could detect some restlessness at each new scene, after the main story was essentially complete.
‐Up to this moment, the movie doesn’t feel too long. It takes about three hours and fifteen minutes to reach the final scene, back in the Shire. Jackson uses it to illustrate some of the things that Tolkien thought were most important in life: families, gardens, and homes. The very last image is a shot of Sam’s round yellow door with a knob in the middle.
FOR COMPLETISTS
Last year, I wrote on The Two Towers for NRO and the Wall Street Journal. Two years ago, I wrote on Tolkien for NRODT.