On Saturday we went to see Return of the King and it was most impressive! We arrived half an hour before the 3pm session, only to find that was sold out and a massive crowd of people were lined up for it. We ended up waiting 1.5 hours for the next session, during which time another huge crowd formed (thankfully we were near the front). I'll be very surprised if this movie doesn't break a record or two!

After finally getting into the theatre, we saw a couple of trailers - Hildalgo, The Butterfly Effect, and The Chronicles of Riddick. All three looked interesting, although I may wait for the DVDs to come out depending on what the reviews are like.

Return of the King started with some of Smeagol / Gollum's background, then followed on quite smoothly from where The Two Towers finished off. Thereafter the tension steadily mounted, with absolutely spectacular battle scenes and the final nail-biting ascent of the ring-bearer to Mount Doom.

Everything about this movie oozed quality, with the gorgeous cinematography, excellent acting, photorealistic effects, and cracking good plot all managing to surpass the standards set by the previous two films.

Going into it, I had my doubts that Return of the King would be able to meet my lofty expectations. How many highly anticipated movies have come and gone, leaving disappointed movie-goers in their wake? This is one of the rare few times where my expectations were exceeded in every respect!

Director Peter Jackson and the countless thousands who worked on this film did a brilliant job and deserve to be congratulated. While not adhering strictly to Tolkien's novels, the spirit of the novels has been captured perfectly.

Do I have any complaints at all? -- Only that the several endings (cascading one after the other) slowed the pacing near the end, and could be likened to a band that responds to one encore too many :) That said, there were many loose ends to tie up, and I can understand why extra time had to be spent to give a sense of closure to the series.

So, in summary: In my opinion, Return of the King is a cinematic masterpiece, with an epic scope rivalling anything done in the past. If you haven't already seen it, what are you waiting for?

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We managed to watch a couple of the movies we rented this weekend - Gods and Generals, and Clerks, with the remainder having to wait until sometime during the week. I'll try to keep this brief, because this entry is long enough as it is!

Gods and Generals is a recent American Civil War epic, attempting to cover the early part of the war mostly from the perspective of the Confederate forces. It also delves into the character of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson in a fair bit of detail, while devoting considerably less screen-time to General Lee and others.

While the battle scenes were well done and the costumes and cinematography excellent, the pacing was slow and sense of drama sadly lacking at pivotal points. It seemed accurate enough from a historical perspective (although I still have much to learn about the American Civil War), but I did think the slavery aspect could've been covered a little better.

This one's probably best left to Civil War buffs, or those with a great deal of patience. It's a pity because there is some good stuff buried amongst the ponderous waffle.

Clerks, on the other hand, provided a surprising amount of entertainment for what is obviously one of Kevin Smith's earlier efforts. Filmed in B&W, Clerks follows a day in the life of two clerks and their attempts to deal with difficult customers and boredom.

Dante, the convenience store clerk, is a likeable enough fellow, although his reactions to various difficulties seemed a tad inconsistent. His friend Randal hangs around the convenience store more than at the video store he works at, and does his level best to irritate the crap out of both Dante and the audience!

The other main characters, Jay and Silent Bob (the director Kevin Smith, in cameo), are a pair of shifty drug-dealers who are more like part of the set than characters, as they spend most of the film hanging around in front of the store.

The film is filled with foul language, and drug and sexual references, so those easily offended need not apply. There isn't much of a plot to speak of, with the bulk of the film composed of a series of interconnected comedic vignettes. If you're at all interested in seeing what can be done on a shoestring budget and can abide dirty jokes, then you can do worse than giving Clerks a gander :)