Plot: The film begins with the 129th birthday of Bilbo Baggins. During the party, Bilbo discovers Frodo missing a finger, and so with the help of the minstrel of Gondor, Frodo and his friends tell Bilbo about his quest to Mount Doom and needing to be rescued by Sam from Orcs along the journey while everyone else is focused on the battle at Minas Tirith.
Now just like with reviewing the animated Lord of the Rings movie, I'm going to try to be unbiased about this film by comparing it less with its obviously highly superior 2003 counterpart. The problem is, while The Lord of the Rings gave us a nice, animated adaption of both The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, this films version of the final book is nothing short of a complete mess almost from beginning to end. Both times that I've watched this film, I get the feeling that even if the Peter Jackson films never came out, I would figure that people would be really confused with this movie - particularly how it picks up from the events of The Lord of the Rings. When we last see the characters in that film *WARNING, SPOILERS* the Grey Company had just won the battle of Helm's Deep, Merry and Pippin had come across Treebeard, and Frodo and Sam had just convinced Gollum to bring them to Mordor. Now at the beginning of this movie, Frodo is already captured by Orcs, the battle of Minas Tirith has already started, Merry is with Theoden, Aragorn is after the black ships, and Legolas and Gimli have completely disappeared. All of this is where the story starts at right after basically addressing the end of the story at the beginning of the film. So it goes from winning a big battle at the end of the previous movie, and then you have this one that basically begins saying "this is basically how the whole quest ended, and here's some elements here and there of what happened." Granted, I understand that adapting this story is hard to do. You are talking a story that was believed to be unfilmable for a long time, and your concluding it with a film only 98 minutes long. But that doesn't mean it's okay that you tell the story in a really clunky way where you give us just elements of the story rather than actual scenes. Because that's basically the majority of the film: lay out an element of the story, play a song, and then eventually move to the next element. In my review for the animated Hobbit movie, I criticized it for having way to many music numbers after almost anything that ever happens in that film. But I'm going to count my blessings with that film, because at least it had some variety. The majority of the music in this film is either hearing the songs Frodo of the Nine Fingers or The Bearer of the Ring for the 8th time each, or playing some other song while giving us some flashback about past events or a daydream of what would happen if they fail or succeed or something. And then you have the song Where there's a whip, there's a way. This is the most memorable song in the whole film, but it's also the most hated. While I can't say for sure why, it does have this sort of tone to it where I can't completely like it...even if at the same time, the tune is really, really catchy. If there were anything that I admit is good about the film to a certain degree, I would say that I do like how they give us some parts of the story that weren't in the Peter Jackson film. Namely things like the One Ring trying to corrupt Sam, Sam coming across the Watchers, and even seeing the Witch-King with his hood taken off.
And that's my review for The Return of the King. If you grew up with this film or just like to see a different interpretation of the story, maybe you'll like it to some degree. But for me, this movie as a whole is nothing short of a complete mess that brings little of the story justice with its messy structure and almost no genuine focus of characters aside from Frodo and Sam. If you just want to see something different than the Peter Jackson films, then give this a try, but I honestly think this is one movie to definitely skip.
Rating: 10%
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