TheRetroCritic

Just when you thought the Lord Of The Rings movies couldn't possibly get any more epic, Return Of The King comes along and blows its predecessors completely out of the water. Which is not to say that the other two films weren't great but in terms of sheer cinematic grandeur, this really raised the bar for the swords and sorcery genre big time. All those plot threads and countless subplots which didn't always feel like they were going anywhere come together and we finally get the epic resolution we deserve. Between those crazy battles involving giant elephants, a Witchking, dragon-type things and about a gazillion people and the more quietly distressing ring-bearer quest, which looks pretty doomed to failure throughout, there's hardly a moment to breathe! It's even a bit hard to list everything that even goes on in this movie. Let's just say that the highlights include John Noble being awesome as crazy old Denethor, Legolas taking down an elephant all by hi

A new power is rising... The Fellowship is scattered: Boromir's gone, Gandalf is seemingly dead, Merry and Pippin have been captured, Sam and Frodo are on their own. Nothing seems to be going right. The Two Towers essentially follows these three plot threads (plus several subplots) as everyone goes on their own individual missions. Aragorn, Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) are on track to go and save Merry and Pippin, the latter, however, have escaped on their own and are hanging out with tree people (Ents). The trio's mission then changes and they're finally off to a big battle. We also get some terrific new characters, this includes Brad Dourif's Wormtongue, a guy who somehow, by looking like Tim Burton's Jim Carrey and being called "Wormtongue" managed to become the king's main advisor. You've got Dredd himself, Karl Urban, as Eomer, David Wenham as Boromir's bro Faramir and warrior princess Eowyn (Miranda Otto)