 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (12A, 201 mins)
Stars Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Sir Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Miranda Otto, Hugo Weaving, Liv Tyler, Cate Blanchett. GANDALF the wizard watches as the Witch King of Angmar, Lord of the Nazgul, leads out his dark lord Sauron's forces from the gates of Mordor and says: "And so we come to it at last - the great battle of our time." He says it with a look of grim anticipation on his face. Funny that. The same look was shared by the hundreds of fans that grew to thousands queueing in the pouring rain outside the Odeon Leicester Square for the British premiere of Return Of The King. For those few lucky enough to join us inside it was impossible to guess whether the promise was fulfilled for them or not. What is certain is that the final film in the trilogy is at least as good as its predecessors. In terms of script and character depth it matches them. It surpasses them - and, dare it be said, any film in history - for the wealth of its deliciously real and often spine-chilling special effects, particularly in the awesome action sequences. The question mark, however, lies in not what is there but what has been left out. With the sheer scope of Tolkien's master-piece and its adaptation for a cinematic audience, the editing has been a bone of contention throughout, hence the popularity of the DVD box sets with the exited footage intact. But this time the gloves really came off when the purists - and there a lot of them - discovered that Christopher Lee's Saruman had been completely removed from the film. They thought it couldn't be done but it has - and for the most part the stitches can't be seen. But Saruman plays a sourly pivotal part in the book's ending and his absence from the film dilutes the full bitter-sweet sadness of Tolkien's message in favour of one that may, for many, have been laden with too much sugar to make the medicine go down. These misgivings apart the film is simply, well, an absolute wowser. | 
