The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

This atavistic Christians-vs-Moors narrative doesn't belong in the present day, and that's no doubt why so many people are addicted to it: it's so ideologically overstated that it can easily be brushed off as harmlessly quaint escapism.

The sense of closure is exquisite, but I'm not sure I'm able to forgive Peter Jackson for the three years that he has taken to put it on the screen. The wait has been excruciating.

Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn is the good king of the title, and while the actor may look fetching in a crown and cloak, he doesn't have half of the gravitas of Sean Bean's Boromir in the first film.

The third part of Peter Jackson's monumental Lord Of The Rings trilogy fully lives up to its predecessors.

With The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Peter Jackson delivers a decent ending to his fantasy trilogy -- actually, about 12 endings.

The Return Of The King ultimately proves up to the series' increasingly difficult task: making movies that echo legends, making legends that reflect life, and reconciling it all with the fact that both legends and lives all eventually meet their ends.

The multiple endings are earned and can go on as long as they like.

The mere thought that we’ve seen the last of Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, Merry, Pippin and Gollum is almost too much. If we must say goodbye, though, it’s best to do it when all involved are at the top of their game.

For all its titanic technical breakthroughs and iconic moments of spectacle, its thematic resonance and sweeping storytelling have helped maintain its legacy beyond similar blockbusters.

The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King asks us to reckon with death and then heals that emotional wound by reminding us that death isn’t a tragedy but the final passage of life.