Rung Out

Looking up: Elijah Wood prepares to play a character taller than 4-foot-10.

The Lord of the Rings cycle ends on a mixed note.

by Sam Adams

To say that the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a singular accomplishment in movie history is almost too timid praise; there are many things that have only been done once, and in many cases, it was one time too many. Likewise to say that it’s the great commercial trilogy of our day: There are decongestant commercials I’d sooner re-watch than all the Star Wars or Matrix movies. It may be exaggerating to say that Peter Jackson and his cast and crew of thousands have redefined the rules of moviemaking, but it’s probably closer to the truth, and if a three-film, nine-hour saga doesn’t inspire a bit of exaggeration, something has gone horribly wrong.

It's possible to single out sequences, like The Two Towers' breathtaking battle of Helm's Deep, or The Return of the King's equally stunning assault on the last human stronghold of Minas Tirith, or performances, like Sean Astin's surprisingly moving turn as the faithful hobbit Samwise, or the mind-blowing blend of computer animation and Andy Serkis' performance that brings tactile life to the malicious but tormented Gollum. But above all, the Rings cycle is a triumph of careful construction, an elaborate jigsaw puzzle whose pieces fall magically into place. (Compare the blithering incoherence of the simultaneously shot Matrix sequels.) And yet, like a jigsaw puzzle, completion becomes almost redundant after a certain point, and you know just how things will look in the end.

Having hit its stride with The Two Towers, the series continues apace with The Return of the King, whose three-hour, 20-minute running time shows the extent to which the DVD "extended editions" have colored Peter Jackson's approach to editing -- and even then, the film arrives with reports that a nine-minute prologue featuring Christopher Lee and Brad Dourif was cut at the last minute. (It will, of course, be on the DVD.) With the twists already twisted, the exposition exposed, there's not much left to do except suit up and dive in, and The Return of the King wastes no time (well, not much) before the first swords are crossed. As in the Helm's Deep sequence, the defense of Minas Tirith flawlessly balances hand-to-hand combat and battlefield tactics, never losing sight of the characters or the overall struggle. In the midst of a massive onslaught by Orcs and mercenary humans, there's still time for Legolas (Orlando Bloom) to climb a lumbering beast, dispatch the enemies from its back, slay the creature, then slide down its trunk as it crashes to the ground. It's the sheer audacity of such stunts that makes you cry out in joy, but it's the sense of the overall battle that makes you feel like you're not just being taken for a ride.

Still, The Return of the King seems to retreat somewhat from the moral complexity of The Two Towers. While that movie saw Frodo (Elijah Wood) being ever more tempted by the power of the ring he is charged to destroy, and Gollum and his schizophrenic better half, Smeagol, battle for control, The Return of the King draws the battle lines more clearly. Even the traitorous spirits Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) calls on for aid opt to join humanity for one last battle, while the humans who fight for the evil eye, Sauron, remain distant, masked figures. Jackson and his many collaborators have given us the battle to end all battles, but the battle between good and evil which the movie ultimately depicts has no real ending.

Any fantasy series that externalizes our internal demons ultimately dead-ends in the same cul-de-sac: How do you proclaim victory over something that we know will never be vanquished? (I mean, without lying.) Buffy the Vampire Slayer approached the subject in its final season, then turned away. Harry Potter may owe some of his power to Voldemort's sting, but it remains to be seen how close J.K. Rowling will bring the young wizard and his malignant counterpart in the final two installments. The Return of the King opens with a recapitulation of Gollum's story, how the once-lighthearted creature named named Smeagol was seduced and deformed by the ring's chance discover. But by the final scene's he's reduced to pure antagonism, a grasping caricature. The movie's lengthy postscript ends in a surprising place, with the simplest of characters, suggesting that all the great struggles we've seen were fought in defense not of some overarching good, but the ability to live a simple, undisturbed life. It's the perfect grace note, undercutting the story's mythic dimensions and replacing them with domestic needs. It isn't evil that's been defeated, it's instability.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING

Directed by Peter Jackson A New Line release Now playing at area theaters

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