I've just seen this on the big screen for the first time since I saw it at London's sadly now long-gone Odeon at Marble Arch, which - at the time - boasted the biggest screen in the UK, and it has lost little of it's magic. Continuing with the interwoven tales of "Frodo", "Sam" and their treacherous guide "Gollum" as they trek through fire and brimstone to get the ring to Mount Doom; whilst Gandalf, Aragorn and the surviving members of the fellowship try to stem the might of "Sauron" and his armies of orcs and their allies. While this is undoubtedly a magnificent piece of cinema, I find the story drags a bit. I found the the focus to be too much on the less interesting characters - the lovelorn "Eowyn" (Miranda Otto); the delusional "Denethor" (John Noble) and decent but rather wimpish "Faramir" (David Wenham) as "Gondor" faces the wrath of their nemesis, and that slows the pace from the action just when it ought to be building. The delightful, friendly, rivalry between "Gimli" & "Legolas" features all too sparingly and it's got too ponderous a narrative to sustain the four hours the otherwise visionary Peter Jackson has created. Fortunately, the triple-header quest with Elijah Wood, Sean Astin and a superb Andy Serkis keep the other strand moving along suspensefully and tensely. The battle scenes are superb, though - when we get them, the effects really do rise to the occasion and, of course, the striking cinematography coupled with the inspired themes from Howard Shore contribute to a thoroughly entertaining adaptation of a thoroughly captivating fantasy adventure. If you make it past the start of the credits, there is the gloriously haunting "Into the West" from Annie Lennox to top off this finest of trilogies. The Oscar/BAFTA awards this achieved are a just reward for years of stunningly creative effort from thousands of people who turned the imagination of a 20th Century English academic into films that will last forever.
