The second dorking-so-hard-I'm-gonna-pull-something review of Return of the King, starting with large themes and moving toward tiny ones, and then with one medium theme at the end:
-This whole trilogy is big on man-on-man love, but the last movie takes homoeroticism to another level. Mary expresses his love for Pippin, Legolas and Gimili can't stop trading sugary glances, and then there's Sam and Frodo, sittin' in a tree. Here's how the last 45 minutes of the movie go: Frodo and Sam sit on the rocks outside Mount Doom, resign themselves to starvation or lava-related death, and talk about how happy they are to have each other "here at the end of all things." Then Frodo wakes up in Elftown, all the living members of the Fellowship have a bouncy tickly slumber party on Frodo's bed. You can't hear what's going on here, but it seems clear that everyone is talking and giggling about cute boys. Until Sam walks in: then everyone goes quiet. They're all like, "Ooooh, Frodo likes someone." But in a few minutes Sam gets married to a lady, prompting Frodo to kiss Sam on the forehead and skip town, because he doesn't want to distract Sam from his wife and kids. If Tolkien wrote this today, you have to believe he would have just pulled the trigger and had the hobbits smooch it up.
-On second viewing, the battle of Minas Tirith is one Han-chasing-stormtroopers-and-then-running-away-from-them scene after another: orcs sack city: people freak out. Men crush orcs' flank: orcs pee pants. Oliphants rip through men's lines: men scream in horror and are impaled on tusks. Men figure out to shoot oliphants in the head, oliphants start wigging their freaking domes out and trampling bad guys. Nazgul fly in and start tossing horses around with impunity, ghost army arrives and wipes the floor with everyone evil. Ping pong ping pong.
-Sam and Frodo running from lava: bad scene. This stuff comes from behind them like a bullet, but then just nips at their hairy little heels as they stumble toward a fortuitous nearby plateau.
-Sauron's "lidless eye." No. A lidless eye would be an eyeball: round. The giant eye in Mordor is lemon-shaped; ie, lidded.
-The lidded lemoneye-as-searchlight thing is lame-o lame-o.
-You can do absolutely anything with CGI now, except this: make a real character ride a CGI creature. Be it Lucas putting Anakin on top of those giant cowticks or Legolas riding up an oliphant, none of it really looks any better than a stop-motion scene from Robocop 2.
-Robocop 2: still really underrated.
-At the end, when everybody's back getting sloshed at The Shire, Sam noticeably doesn't use the handle on his beer mug. He holds it like a glass. And he's just cool. By the end of the movie, Sam has been to the end of the world, he's done his duty, and he's back home to take care of whatever unfinished business is left. He's got as much confidence with that beer as Bond does with his martinis. He toasts his buddies, then excuses himself to go woo the pants off his lady of choice. Sam freaking rules.
