The Return of the King (Extended Edition) in 25 Words or Less
With all due respect to Tolkien ó and much is due ó the films surpass the novels when considering the "good story, well told." Grade: A
Comments
After seing RotK in theaters, I ranked the three films Fellowship, RotK, Two Towers (from best to worst). Then I saw the extended RotK, which I expected to like even more than the the theatrical version, and decided the real ranking was actually in order: Fellowship, Two Towers, RotK. While I enjoyed RotK, I found myself mocking some of the story choices while watching it. And not because I'm some demented purist but because I thought they lost some great opportunities to make the book even more cinematic.
I agree with you, Chris.
My wife and I laughed out loud, despite ourselves, both in the theater and at home with the extended edition. "Return of the King" is the weakest of the three films in part because the poor choices and heavy-handed emotional arm-tugging that Jackson employs in this film is writ so damn large.
Characters (like the freaking titular king) that I loved in the first movie are altogether absent in this picture. The credibility that Jackson won in "Fellowship," though, was used by him and fans to defend him here. He simultaneously blames shortcomings on the needs of the books while deviating from them when he deems it necessary. If he can move Shelob to this film, surely he can find a way to make Denethor someone other than Wile E. Coyote. If he feels comfortable writing so many new scenes for "Two Towers," why doesn't he feel comfortable reframing the action in this picture? How can he blame the screen-time or depth of character we see in Aragorn on the books and then spend three minutes of his film doing TV-movie quality slo-mo effects of Pippin Shatnering on the floor with a bowling ball?
The scenes in which Gandalf whacks Denethor on the head and then goes riding through town with speeding swish-past dialogue are examples of comedic timing and framing. Denethor might as well have been knocked into the swimming pool with the crotchety old Dean of Students.
The realism that was earned in the earlier movies is spent here early on, and then completely forgotten. The orcs bring big trolls with them to load rocks into their catapults, which is a semblance of realism that helps us buy into the picture. The humans, meanwhile, hurl the whole freaking second floor of some stone house from a catapult in an only-possible-through-CG angle that undermined all peril for me.
"Return of the King" is a meandering, heavy-handed mess with little or no emotional flow and feats of editing that defy narrative logic. I call it "laughable" only because I found I cannot take it seriously. And, folks, I write about vampires and pixies for a living. It's not like I'm not able to take this stuff seriously when it's good.
I just can't get over no scouring of the shire because it's my favorite part of the books. The little guys, bullied through the whole movie by orcs, men, wizards, go home and kick some ass.