The grand Lord of the Ring adventure ends with a bang in this third installment of the trilogy. The storyline with the Group A band of characters (1 human, 1 elf, 1 dwarf mainly) disappoints as they have an anti-climactic confrontation with the forces of evil; the resolution is not bad, but it’s not the spectacle that the movie was leading up to. However, the storyline with Group B (2 hobbits and 1 Gollum) reaches heights of greatness that more than makes up for under-powered Group A resolution. And Gollum clinches the award as THE best CGI character and one of the best cinematic performances ever, an amazing achievement considering this was done back in 2003. Not perfect, but a great movie nevertheless with great everything—acting, direction, story, cinematography, music.

Extra:

• The extended edition version includes the fall of Christopher Lee’s character, a sequence that never should have been cut out of the theatrical version (and Lee was justifiably angry with the omission). It’s a great scene. In the shorter theatrical version, Lee’s character simply disappears and you’re thinking, “I wonder what happened to that guy?”
• I give 80% for the theatrical version and 93% for the extended edition. To calculate the Wise Rating, I averaged both and rounded it out to 87%.