Return of the King is rather great

I was prepared for disappointment, but ended up excited and even a little moved by The Return of the King. It's an excellent movie, and probably the best of the three. (Spoilers ahead.)

This movie really belongs to the hobbits. They're the emotional anchor of the story and they're the audience's entrance to the wonders of Middle Earth. So I was most happy to see Merry and Pippen back in meaningful roles.

It also doesn't hurt that all four hobbit actors (Billy Boyd, Dom Monaghan, Sean Astin and Elijah Wood) were superb in this movie. Sean Astin, whom I wanted to dislike, won me over with his sensitive Sam Gamgee. And Billy Boyd gave a remarkable performance as the scared, reluctantly courageous Pippen. I cared more about Pippen's storyline in Minas Tirith than Sam and Frodo's predictable march up Mount Doom.

Visually, Return of the King is amazing. The computer-generated effects, especially in the battle scenes, are dizzying. I thought Jackson handled the battles really well, smoothly moving from epic scale (the distant shots of the Riders of Rohan attacking the orc hordes) to the personal scale (Eowyn vs. the Witch King). And, man, Shelob was fing scary.

The set and costume designers' attention to detail was similarly impressive. The white tree of Gondor, as an example, is inscribed on doors, walls, shields and basically everywhere else throughout Minas Tirith. It's details like those that make the world seem real.

In the end, I thought all the spectacular sets and sturm und drang of the battles served as a grand stage for a sweet story about the friendship, loyalty, fear and courage of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippen. To Jackson's credit, he never lets the fantasy elements (or Tolkien's sometimes transparent Christian allusions) overtake the relationships between those characters.

Of course, I found a few things annoying. When Viggo Mortensen talks he just doesn't seem very kingly. Compared to the oaky intonations of Ian McKellen, Viggo's voice sounds whiny. Legolas--and his elven superhero routine--is stupid (even for a fantasy movie). Hugo Weaving is still carrying Agent Smith's baggage. I would have liked to see more Nazgul, though I suppose they'll be in the special edition DVD.

But those are minor complaints about an otherwise great movie.