The Return of the King

Despite the fact that I’m a huge fan of the first two movies, until Tuesday of this week, I hadn’t yet seen Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The movie has been out since December, but I kept missing my opportunities to go. But after the long delay, the wait was well worth it.

My biggest barrier to seeing the third movie in Tolkien’s trilogy was probably that Jen hadn’t seen the first two movies yet. I got the extended editions both of them on DVD for Christmas. The plan for a while was that we would watch the first two movies together and then go and see the third one. But between work, church, and getting ready for the baby, we seem to find things to keep our schedule full enough.

Finally this week I saw that Return of the King would be ending its run at our theater on Thursday, so I knew it was my last chance. I caught an 8:15 showing of the movie after our church prayer meeting this past Tuesday night. It was a little funny going to a movie by myself; I don’t remember the last time I did it. But I got to experience it on a big screen, which was well worth it.

And the movie was definitely worth it. It is around three hours and fifteen minutes long, but it is exciting and engaging throughout. There are a couple little sections of a few minutes where things seem to slow down a bit, but overall, I thought it was an incredible ending to a great series. Even though the most beloved characters tend to be Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson) and Legolas (Orlando Bloom), I really have to say that Elijah Woods playing the part of Frodo Baggins is one of the best things the movie has going for it. He seems so natural in the movie. From my reading of the books, the character he portrays seems to be everything I imagined Frodo to be.

Once this movie comes out in its extended edition, I’ll have to get it so that I can have the whole 10-11 hours on DVD. Due to some of the violence, these aren’t movies I’ll let my kids watch at a young age. But I’ll look forward to the opportunity to enjoy them together someday.