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Compiled by: Jack Foley
US critics were unanimous in their praise for the final film
in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Entertainment Weekly led the way, describing it as ‘passionate
and literate, detailed and expansive... it's conceived with a
risk-taking flair for old-fashioned movie magic at its most precious’.
While the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that ‘Viggo
Mortensen achieves true movie-stardom in Jackson's epic, playing
the brooding mystery man Aragorn, son of Arathorn, who gains his
rightful place as King Elessar in a coronation that makes the
pomp and circumstance of 'Star Wars' look cheesy’.
The Houston Chronicle, meanwhile, wrote that ‘this
film is everything a fan could want and possibly more. For three-plus
hours, it entertains, enthralls and awes’.
The Los Angeles Times noted that ‘as a model for
how to bring substance, authenticity and insight to the biggest
of adventure yarns, this trilogy will not soon, if ever, find
its equal’.
While the New York Times felt that ‘King is the product
of impressive craft and energy’.
Variety noted that ‘Peter Jackson's final installment
in his monumental The Lord of the Rings represents that filmmaking
rarity - a third part of a trilogy that is decisively the best
of the lot’.
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And the New York Daily News wrote that ‘with The
Return of the King, New Zealand director Peter Jackson has completed
his trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien's mammoth The Lord of the Rings,
and can lay claim to one of the greatest achievements in film
history’.
Many even thought it surpassed the achievements of the first
two movies, with the New York Post writing that it ‘towers
above its predecessors with cleaner storytelling and a more satisfying
balance between terrific acting and eye-popping effects’.
The San Francisco Chronicle, meanwhile, described it as
‘a grand adventure with lots of fun things to look at’.
While the Hollywood Reporter opined that it is ‘a
masterfully entertaining final installment’.
The Washington Post noted that ‘Tolkien and his representative
on Earth, [Peter] Jackson, really know how to get a tale roaring
down the tracks’.
Time Magazine, meanwhile, declared it to be ‘the
film event of the millennium’, while CNN found it
to be ‘utterly breathtaking’.
And the Boston Globe wrote that ‘audiences who don't
have halberds to grind and who possess rear ends of steel and
a taste for declamatory heroics will find themselves rewarded’.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution raved: "With The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Peter Jackson brings
his epic series to a glorious finish. And in doing so, he's made
the greatest movie trilogy in cinema history."
But the final word goes to USA Today, which concludes
this round-up, by declaring it to be ‘the jewel in the crown
of the masterful trilogy’.
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