The Lord of The Rings: The Return of The King: Critic Reviews

Passionate and literate, detailed and expansive... it's conceived with a risk-taking flair for old-fashioned movie magic at its most precious.

King is the product of impressive craft and energy.

No flabber has been left ungasted by Mr Jackson's mighty battle sequences, nor no gob unsmacked.

The jewel in the crown of the masterful trilogy.

Not only a thrilling experience, it closes the book on a truly satisfying trilogy.

Tolkien and his representative on Earth, [Peter] Jackson, really know how to get a tale roaring down the tracks.

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.

This Krakatoa is at once exhausting and riveting.

[Director Peter Jackson] can lay claim to one of the greatest achievements in film history.

This film is everything a fan could want and possibly more. For three-plus hours, it entertains, enthralls and awes.

The director and screenwriter brings unity to a somewhat unwieldy story and handles the spectacle scenes with flourish and coherence.

Confirms Jackson's reputation as a kinetic director who has made author J.R.R. Tolkien's work his own -- not as plagiarist but as a visionary.

The word trilogy, which was handed such a black eye by the Matrix movies, is restored to its proper dignity with Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

As I watched this film, an eager victim of its boundless will to astound, I found my loyal memories of the book beginning to fade.

Return of the King is such a crowning achievement, such a visionary use of all the tools of special effects, such a pure spectacle, that it can be enjoyed even by those who have not seen the first two films.

Both profoundly moving and deeply satisfying.

Standing out amid an excellent cast is Elijah Wood, stymied by tweeness in the earlier films but here convincingly developing the character of Frodo as the embodiment of valor and self-sacrifice.

[The] trilogy is, by any measure, a crowning moment in cinema history ... So why is the final installment, less than awesome?

A magical movie in every sense of the word.

It reminds you of the power of film like no other movie in memory.

Not only has Jackson boldly and faithfully brought J.R.R. Tolkien's world to life, he's created the most epic and sweeping fantasy adventure of all time.

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.

Towers above its predecessors with cleaner storytelling and a more satisfying balance between terrific acting and eye-popping effects.

The thrilling conclusion to what has become the film event of our time -- the definitive screen fantasy -- features more spellbinding moments, bigger battles, more emotion and more poetry than the terrific first two films in the trilogy.

Completes the picture, magnificently so, and all honour and praise are due the visionaries behind the project.