Angel Heart (USA, 1987)
Directed by Alan Parker
Starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro, Lisa Bonet, Charlotte Rampling

Alan Parker is that most contradictory of characters, the journeyman auteur. In a career spanning four decades he has made a film in almost every conceivable genre, from musicals (Bugsy Malone) to prison dramas (Midnight Express), and from war films (Birdy) to offbeat comedies (The Road to Wellville). While the results have not always been cohesive or agreeable, when he is on form he achieves that rare balance of distinctive directorial vision and respectful treatment of a given story.After working with Peter Gabriel on Birdy, the film which launched the career of Matthew Modine, Parker turned his hand to film noir in the form of Angel Heart. Based loosely on the novel Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg, it combines the hardboiled pulp fiction of Raymond Chandler with the supernatural threat of The Wicker Man, held together by Parker's sumptuous visuals and a powerful central performance by Mickey Rourke. While not a complete masterpiece, it remains a highly compelling work of 1980s cinema which is more than worthy of its cult status.On a basic level, Angel Heart is a throwback to the classic noirs of the 1930s and 1940s, with a plot straight out of a classic gumshoe detective story. In the film a private detective meets a mysterious client, who offers him a large sum of money to find a man who owes him some form of debt. As the detective snoops around, he finds himself pulled further and further into a dark new world, and eventually comes to realise that he is more closely connected to the client than he previously thought...When written out like this, Angel Heart can seem incredibly hackneyed, the sort of script which had been hanging around studios for years being constantly re-written. But the film is fully aware of its place in the genre, tipping its hat to other recent attempts to reinvigorate or redefine film noir. There is, for instance, a direct nod to Chinatown in the scene on the beach: Harry Angel is given a nose shield which he clips to his sunglasses, mirroring the image of J. J. Gittes with his bandaged nose.Both Chinatown and Angel Heart use the conventions of pulp and film noir to provide a firm grounding for their audience, giving some form of reassurance as they indulge in ideas or flights of fantasy which are uncommon for their genre. In the end Angel Heart is the weaker film, since its relationship to such conventions is so close that, on a narrative level at least, it never manages to rise above it. But there is still much pleasure to be had from watching all the pieces fit together, and much terror to be found in Parker's various stylish indulgences.Judged purely on its visuals, Angel Heart is as memorably full-on and sumptuous as Pink Floyd - The Wall five years earlier. As with that film, there is a contrast between the pale and faded colours of the 'normal' world (in this case New York City) and the richer, fuller tones which gradually emerge as both film and character tip over into madness. Parker's long-time cinematographer, Michael Seresin, floods these sequences with reds and blacks which wouldn't look out of place in the work of Dario Argento, and his capturing of shadows rivals anything on The Third Man.These visuals hint at one of the great successes of Angel Heart as a thriller, namely the level of atmosphere it creates. The three or four scenes involving Robert De Niro are uncharacteristically quiet; they occur in churches, offices and deserted cafés, places in which Parker can play on the pauses and grant De Niro's every word the emphasis it deserves. This, coupled with his threatening characterisation, creates the sense of some great evil hovering over everything that occurs between his meetings with Mickey Rourke. Like the dark shadows on a Francis Bacon painting, we feel threatened by this intangible, amorphous sense of doom, which feeds the paranoia of the audience until we are begging for relief.The plot of Angel Heart is rooted in the age-old story of Faustus, which involves a man selling his soul to the devil in return for success - he gains the world at the cost of the one thing that is truly and inalienably his. The character of Johnny Favourite, who never appears on screen, stands in for Faust as a man determined to have fame and fortune at any price. But where Faust seeks no harm to others in his quest for hedonistic fulfilment, Favourite is "as close to true evil as anyone wanted to come" and is driven to desperation in his bid to renege on the deal.The film is full of religious imagery relating to both Christianity and voodoo. Some of the Christian imagery is obvious: you don't call characters Harry Angel and Louis Cyphre without good reason. In one of their conversations, Cyphre describes how an egg can represent the human soul; he then proceeds to devour an egg he had peeled with his long fingernails, like the devil wearing down a victim and going in for the kill. Other images are more subtle and inventive, like the recurring shot of fans and elevators - ordinary, everyday objects which carry connotations of death and descent into darkness.

As with the paganism depicted in The Wicker Man, the voodoo elements in Angel Heart are not intended necessarily to be taken as chapter and verse. The intention is less to describe exactly what voodoo entails and how it is practised, and more about conveying a clash of cultures, in this case between atheism and the supernatural in general. Angel's contact with voodoo in New Orleans is the first time he entertains the idea that Johnny Favourite was anything more than an elaborate hoax. In a subversion of Christianity, it is faith in a life after death that leads him not to God but to the Devil.Being both a hardboiled thriller and a supernatural horror movie, Angel Heart contains a certain amount of graphic violence. Such scenes include a live chicken being cut open and its blood being poured over Lisa Bonet, Angel being beaten up by anonymous mobsters, and the numerous murders which occur. Though not an out-and-out shocker in the mould of Hellraiser, there is more than enough in Angel Heart to make you wince and shiver.Fortunately, precious little of this violence is salacious or gratuitous. The most terrifying moments in Angel Heart are those which use such imagery in an artier, more abstract way to unnerve the viewer psychologically. As the film goes on, Angel begins to suffer vivid nightmares involving an apartment window, red light and a man screaming - a simple image which becomes steadily more unsettling. There is a further link with Pink Floyd - The Wall in the scene where Angel and Epiphany make love in the leaky apartment. The image of water slowly turning to blood is a close cousin of 'The Thin Ice' sequence with Bob Geldof drowning in the swimming pool.The performances in Angel Heart are every bit as memorable as the imagery surrounding them. Although De Niro hovers menacingly over everything, it is Mickey Rourke who defines the film in what remains his finest performance. Harry Angel may be a dishevelled flatfoot, but Rourke brings so much more to the party, from his snarky facial expressions to a deep world-weariness: whether down-to-earth or downright hysterical, Angel feels so much more than just an archetype. The supporting performances by Lisa Bonet and Charlotte Rampling are also pretty convincing, especially from the former in a full-on big-screen debut.Angel Heart does for the pulp thriller what Black Swan did for the giallos of Dario Argento. It takes a number of familiar elements from a given genre and affectionately cranks them up to a point of near-hysteria, resulting in a film which is intensely atmospheric and deeply unnerving. Like Black Swan, there are moments which are ridiculous, and it's hardly the most consistent film ever made. But when it works, it works beautifully, resulting in a breath-taking balance of art, faith and fear.

Rating:
Verdict: Sumptuous, stylish, strange and scary

The Sting (USA, 1973)
Directed by George Roy Hill
Starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw, Charles Durning

It is very tempting to hate The Sting for beating The Exorcist to the Best Picture Oscar. Some would even go so far as to rank it alongside Crash and How Green Was My Valley is one of the Academy's greatest faux pas. But whatever vitriol the other two deserve, The Sting still holds up as a damn fine film, with all the essential ingredients of a proper American caper.Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting is very deliberately nostalgic and old-fashioned. Both films romanticise key aspects of American history, something which is evident in everything from the jazz-inflected dialogue to the washed-out visuals, right down to The Sting's family-friendly PG certificate. One of the most obvious expressions of this old-school approach is the editing. William H. Reynolds' transitions are all slow wipes and frames twisting on each other, and the film ends with an iris wipe of our two heroes walking off into the distance, like the characters in Looney Tunes.In line with this romantic depiction of 1930s Chicago, The Sting's tone is playful and breezy even in its most threatening moments. The Scott Joplin ragtime soundtrack gives every scene a precise sense of pace and momentum, and as with Howard Shore's work on The Lord of the Rings, the action fits the music so well you can't believe the actors weren't choreographing their movements to it on set. The film nestles somewhere between a Technicolor musical and the original version of Scarface, combining all that bright and cheerful about melodramas with all that is suspenseful about crime films.Aside from its similarity to Butch Cassidy, the closest comparison to The Sting would have to be Chinatown, since both films depict a similar era from a 1970s vantage point and have incredibly twisty stories. In terms of the period touches and historical accuracy, you couldn't put a playing card between them. But Chinatown is the better film, not because it is darker or more hard-hitting, but because it has more conscious and lucid intentions.

Because Roman Polanski approached the Californian water wars as an outsider, he could be as savage as he liked about the American dream and drive home his arguments about contemporary America. For all its period glamour and elegant noir touches, Chinatown feels like it is constantly driving forward and asking you to keep up, with Polanski leaving nothing to chance to reel you in and break your heart. Because George Roy Hill has such massive affection for the period and lifestyle he is depicting, The Sting occasionally feels like a film which wants to stop and admire the view even when things are becoming crucial. At two hours long, it's still an efficient piece of storytelling, but it does feel like a film with a lot less to say.There are two aspects of The Sting which hold the film together, both as a piece of breezy entertainment and as a really good thriller in which everything adds up. The first is the storytelling, which is accessible without being facile and complex without being convoluted. The use of old-fashioned title cards explains where we are for people not old or informed enough to understand the twists, while the various cheats and increasingly elaborate bluffing keeps the rest of us guessing.

The Sting is a film about conning in which everyone is conning or being conned by everyone else - a premise that could quickly get out of hand. But Hill and the cast get around this, drawing the audience in with the charm of the characters so they we not only indulge their play-acting, we encourage it. In the opening con involving Robert Redford and Robert Earl Jones (the father of Darth Vader), Hill's camera is there as a passive observer, never intervening by getting in close and thereby making their actions look believable. Hence when we find out what was really in the wallet, we not only don't feel bad for being tricked, but we find ourselves rooting for these guys.The other key aspect is Robert Shaw, whose performance as Doyle Lonnegan is the best of his career. Lonnegan is the most complex character in the film, someone who has hidden his own past to shore up credibility and who has risen to the top by outsmarting his opponents before cutting them out of their own operations. Shaw is a naturally intimidating screen presence, and in sharp contrast to Paul Newman and Redford his actions are constantly restrained and understated.As is so often the way, the most interesting part of Shaw's characterisation happened by accident. A week before filming, he slipped on a wet handball court and split all the ligaments in his right knee. Rather than delay filming, Shaw had to wear a knee brace under the wide trousers, resulting in a staggered and uneven gait. The impediment is noticeable when Lonnegan enters the salon, keeping his right leg absolutely straight as he slowly hobbles the steps. This subtle touch gives the character extra reasoning behind his ruthless approach, while also reassuring the audience that he is not invincible.The best scene in The Sting is the poker game which Newman joins on the train between New York and Chicago (ironically posing as a bookie called 'Shaw'). Instead of Scott Joplin, the scene is given rhythm by the background noise of the train, making the silences all the more unbearable. Shaw's face barely alters save for little flickers in his eyes and his mouth, and yet he manages to move from calmness to smirking confidence to seething fury all in five minutes. And then there is the great guessing point - how on earth did Gondorff manage to cheat?This latter point hints at the other great success of The Sting: the lack of excessive exposition. The film expects audiences not only to follow the plot but to have a working understanding of poker - or at the very least, be aware of the wider significance of the cards being played. Despite the fact that at no point the rules of either poker or the cons are explained in any great detail, you don't have to be an expert in either to follow the story. Compare that with the poker in The Cincinnati Kid, in which every move is explained and the camera is darting all over the place, desperately trying to make the scenes dramatic but having the opposite effect.Alongside Shaw's performance, there are other dark elements of The Sting which reference characters familiar to filmgoers of the day. The character of Snyder, the rogue FBI agent hunting down Hooker way outside his jurisdiction, bears some similarity to Popeye Doyle in The French Connection: like Gene Hackman, he pulls no punches and leaves no stone unturned to do his job. The idea of female assassins had become popular in the James Bond series, with such characters appearing in both From Russia with Love and Thunderball. And the black leather gloves worn by the hidden figure tailing Hooker is a possible reference to Dr. Strangelove.The Sting is not an unqualified success. It is ultimately very light-headed even in its serious moments, and in the conclusion of the final con involving the FBI it does descend a little into silliness. But it is very hard to take against a series of such enjoyable and well-judged performances, complimented by an engagingly complicated story. While it doesn't have the cult appeal of Butch Cassidy, it is an improvement on that work, and remains a must-see 1970s crime film.

Rating: 4/5
Verdict: Breezy, twisty and damned enjoyable

The Passenger (USA, 1975)
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Starring Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Jenny Runacre, Ian Hendry

There is an argument put forward by film theorists that today's audiences are incapable of appreciating older films. The saturation of our culture with music videos and the internet creates a natural impatience, which carries over into cinema through increasingly rapid editing and flashier cinematography. This causes the simplification of imagery and the symbols which lie behind them, and the whole process begins feeding on itself until we are all infantilised.Notwithstanding its inherent arrogance towards the cinema-going public, this theory is flawed because it is based upon a nostalgic assumption about older films. Contrary to its assumptions, potentially great films are often reduced to being merely good or very good, not by shortcomings in their audience but in the difficult attitude they take towards presenting their ideas. The Passenger is a typical example, being a revered classic which is indeed very good, but whose flaws are easy to acknowledge and prevent it from ever being great.The Passenger is Michelangelo Antonioni's third and final feature in the English language, the others being Blow-Up and Zabriskie Point. Like many of his films, it explores the issue of alienation, specifically of characters feeling isolated and out of place in the world around them. But where Zabriskie Point attempts this analysis with an entire generation, embodied by the two students who make love in the desert, The Passenger is a lot more focussed, more personal and ultimately more successful.The film explores the extent to which a single act or idea can alter an individual's life, using the trading of identities as a means to explore existential disillusionment. When we first meet David Locke, expertly played by Jack Nicholson, he is bored of his life, bored of his work and desperate to escape to somewhere where no-one can find him. He trades identities with the dead man in the next room believing that he can start his life over, without any baggage or responsibilities: for once he can live the way he wants, for as long as he wants.

Having taken on this mantle, and changed from Locke to Robertson, our leading man quickly finds himself in dangerous circumstances worthy of any thriller. The scene in the church, in which Nicholson bluffs his way through a meeting with the men he is supplying with arms, is reminiscent of Richard Hannay during the political meeting in The 39 Steps. Both characters have to think on their feet to convince the world that they are someone else, making all decisions and giving all answers based purely on impulse and guesswork.But unlike John Buchan's novel, or any of the film versions that followed, the thrills in The Passenger are much more internalised. There is a thriller-like plot, both in Locke's new identity as a gun runner and in the efforts of his director and wife to track him down. But these elements have to take equal billing to the existential thrust of the film, which is interested in identity and the internalised conflicts of the central character. The film manages to balance the two very well, giving us enough moments of jeopardy and near-misses to keep the less patient among us interested.The central idea of The Passenger is that all men (and possibly women) are bound by the same doubts, fears and anxieties. Assuming a new identity is not a feasible means to escape from oneself, no matter how methodically one goes about it. On the one hand, 'Robertson' finds himself bound to supply guns which he cannot possibly deliver; the second he takes the down-payment in the church, he becomes a wanted man. On the other hand, elements of Locke in his previous life begin to encroach, as his initial enthusiasm begins to give way to melancholy, cynicism, and finally an all-encompassing sense of futility.

The key scene in The Passenger comes in the last ten minutes, where Locke and The Girl are in hiding in a hotel, knowing full well that the former will soon be killed. Locke relates a story of a blind man who regains his sight: the man was initially elated, but this vision exposed him to the horrors of the world which he could previously only imagine, and he ended up a recluse who committed suicide. This is the nub of the film: what seems like a chance to escape the world and see it with new eyes only leads to greater suffering. Ultimately all we can do is accept our status as passengers, unable to influence the mechanics of this world and fully mindful that whatever we do, death will always catch up with us.This outlook is furthered by Antonioni's direction, which highlights how small and helpless the characters are. Whether they are crawling through the desert or in the busy streets of an inner city, the central characters are presented from a distance, insignificant in the face of all around them. Even in its most romantic moment, when it appears that Locke and the girl have made love, the camera keeps its distance, peering through the doorway when other directors would have taken us up close and personal. The film is beautifully shot with washed-out colours and a series of interesting camera angle.The most famous of these is the penultimate scene, a seven-minute tracking shot which is both a technical showcase (predating the Steadicam) and a poetic means to bring the story to a close. As Locke lights up a cigarette and lies down on the bed, the camera moves slowly forward through the bars of the window, out into the square, follows the movements of several characters before turning around and drifting back in to find Locke dead. This is Locke's soul taking flight, finally escaping from this world into something new, and taking one last look at what he is leaving behind.

For all its virtues, The Passenger is not without its faults. Even to those familiar with Antonioni's style, or more general trends in European filmmaking, the film is very, very slow and around half an hour too long. Because the emphasis is so much on emotion rather than plot, its story could have been handled in 90 minutes without losing any impact, whether visually or emotionally. Antonioni's languorous shooting style with long slow takes and almost no soundtrack can seem pretentious on occasion, albeit not so much that we lose all interest in what is happening.
The other problem with The Passenger is the sense of distance involved. Just as, in the words of David Lynch, the artist needn't suffer to show suffering, so the audience shouldn't necessary be alienated during a film about alienation. Like the work of Tom Kalin, The Passenger keeps its audience at arms' length, not out of coyness about its subject matter, but because that seems the natural way to tell the story. And as with Swoon or Savage Grace, this decision may be the right one, but it makes connecting with the characters more difficult, putting the entire story in jeopardy.The Passenger is an intriguing and haunting work whose influence on modern cinema continues, as seen by its substantial presence in Anton Corbijn's The American. Jack Nicholson is on good form, albeit not quite as good as in Chinatown, and the film is recommended viewing for anyone interested in European cinema. For all its faults and bits that drag, there is a slow-burning profundity to it, which keeps it an enticing and memorable experience for generations to come.

Rating: 4/5
Verdict: A haunting and intriguing slow-burner

Escape from New York (USA, 1981)
Directed by John Carpenter
Starring Kurt Russell, Lee van Cleef, Donald Pleasance, Isaac Hayes

After the production problems on The Fog, John Carpenter sought to re-assert himself as a creative force with Escape from New York. Based upon a script he had written around the time of Dark Star, it promised to be a post-apocalyptic action movie with all the subversive subtext of his earlier work. But whether by flaws in its execution or by the passage of the time, the film doesn't hold up as anything more than an efficient and enjoyable disappointment.Almost by definition, post-apocalypse films don't date very well. Those that do still hold up - Mad Max, The Road, even The Bed-Sitting Room - succeed by being 'universal' in the ideas they examine but crucially vague about when or even how we got to this point in time. Most films about the end of the world are actually about the problems in present society, which can make even the best-made films dated in a matter of years. It doesn't take long to realise for instance that, if the Daleks did invade in 2150, we wouldn't still be driving Bedford vans and eating Sugar Puffs.Carpenter's original script was written at the time of the Watergate scandal, when the idea of a criminal rescuing a president would have carried a great deal of satirical bite. Had he got the money to make it when Nixon resigned, he could have had a hit on his hands which packed as big a political punch as All The President's Men. Telling that story during the Reagan years may still work on some level; turning Manhattan Island into a prison seems every bit as outlandish as the Star Wars programme. But whatever else the original script had simply doesn't gel, turning the film into something far more straightforwardly heroic, if not overtly patriotic.Like They Live a few years after it, Escape from New York is an action movie with large overtones of the western genre. Both John Nada and Snake Plissken are Carpenter's own takes on The Man with No Name, and Kurt Russell's performance is on one level a pretty good impression of Clint Eastwood. The film is built around the classic 'one last job' scenario, in which Plissken is offered his freedom to do the one thing he really doesn't want to do. There is great potential in this character, as a classic anti-hero who eschews authority and is only convinced to obey when threatened with a slow and painful death.Even considering its low budget (around $6m), Escape from New York does look like a film that was made in a hurry. To film some of the key scenes, including the aftermath of the plane crash, the crew had to sneak onto empty streets without permits at 3am, in some cases dumping truckloads of junk onto the roads to create the feeling of chaos. Even from the start the story is being hurried along, with the first 15 minutes doing whatever is necessary to get Snake into the city, and from thereon in the film wastes no time in getting him out. This is not a Chinatown-like mystery, with brooding detectives slowly uncovering a hideous truth; it is a simple, straightforward story and a race against time, and as a piece of efficient filmmaking, it delivers.This rapid approach to shooting does create some obvious continuity errors: in one scene, it's sunrise on one side of the island while still midnight on the other. But the first problem with the film is that it's so quick-fire and so efficient that you begin to wonder whether there's anything actually going on in the pauses. Although it's lost the Watergate backdrop, there is still the potential to explore a number of interesting ideas, if not enough to fill a whole series of films.

The set-up of the film, with a whole city being walled off and turned into a prison, hints at the tendency of civilised societies to isolate and shun its criminals rather than deal with them upfront and try to understand them, something which Carpenter tackled previously in Assault on Precinct 13. The unveiling of a criminal society, presided over by the Duke of New York, puts forward the notion of criminals being every bit as civilised and cunning as either their captors or the protagonist, something reflected throughout the work of Michael Mann. And the conflicts over power, with Harry Dean Stanton's character controlling the city's only source of oil, taps into the very same territory as the first Mad Max film.But as things evolve, it becomes clear that the film isn't really interested in any of these ideas. The film is like a land speed record attempt in which the driver is wearing blinkers; the object is to get from A to B as quickly as possible, and there is no chance to look around or think about anything else. Whenever Carpenter does attempt to tackle deeper issues, it's done in a half-hearted manner using imagery which is surprisingly unoriginal.

Huge sections of the film owe a big debt to Mad Max in a way which really demonstrates all that was spot on about George Miller's debut effort. The criminal gang in Escape from New York don't get enough time to establish themselves, and for all Isaac Hayes' best efforts, he's not as intimidating as the Toe-Cutter. The various street gangs (which reference George A. Romero by calling themselves 'The Crazies') dress every bit as extremely as the bikers, right down to Isaac Hayes' right hand man who looks unnervingly like Keith Flint from The Prodigy. And then there is the fight scene, in which Kurt Russell takes on a wrestler with a huge beard. It may predate the Thunderdome fight in Mad Max 3 by about four years, but there is a tonal similarity to the series in the combination of camp humour and realistic violence.This brings us on to problems with the characters. Escape from New York has more than its fair share of them, from Snake himself to Ernest Borgnine's chirpy Cabby, and from the Duke of New York to the odd couple of Maggie and Brain. But Carpenter sets up so many of these potentially interesting and quirky characters that he can't quite decide who to focus on and ends up having to kill them off in quick succession so that just Snake and the President survive. In the bridge sequence, where Cabby's taxi gets destroyed by several mines, he is incredibly cavalier about who cops it and when.This jumpy approach carries over into the performances themselves. Harry Dean Stanton is an enjoyable screen presence, and he plays Brain very well - so well that you wish he had more screen time. Adrienne Barbeau, on the other hand, seems to spend most of her time either firing a gun or walking into wide shots that show off her cleavage. Ernest Borgnine is annoyingly over-the-top, as if he were trying to cut in on every shot, and Lee van Cleef is reduced to largely scowling behind a desk. Only Kurt Russell gets the screen time he deserves, filling the empty streets of New York with his one-eyed swagger and growling whispers.There are a number of enjoyable moments in Escape from New York which make it at least partially memorable. The set-pieces involving the cars, both on the bridge and breaking through the barricade, are well-choreographed and have good sound design, so that every explosion and crunch of metal is appropriately amplified. Isaac Hayes' entrance will raise a chuckle, as he drives through the wreckage of New York in a limo with chandeliers mounted on the bonnet (eat your heart out, Pimp My Ride!). Some of the humorous exchanges do work well, such as Hayes taunting Donald Pleasance with a gun and then the latter getting his revenge at the end. And the final scene, where the crucial tape has been replaced, is quite funny.But in all, Escape from New York is little more than an enjoyable disappointment. It's a perfectly functional, efficiently made sci-fi actioner, but is nothing like as witty or subversive or thrilling as you would expect from John Carpenter. Like Mad Max 3 a few years later, there are individual scenes that work well but these are counterpointed by longer, more underwhelming sections. Carpenter completists will enjoy it, but everyone else should probably look elsewhere.

Rating: 2.5/5
Verdict: An enjoyable disappointment

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (New Zealand, 2003)
Directed by Peter Jackson
Starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Andy Serkis

There are so few third instalments of trilogies which genuinely work. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is an enjoyable disappointment, with good action sequences but a cliché-ridden plot ripped off from Peter Pan. Day of the Dead is less tense than its predecessor and less threatening in its political subtexts. And Army of Darkness is plain and simple pants. But with The Return of the King, Peter Jackson has done it: he has crafted a trilogy of masterpieces which also get progressively better.The Return of the King is the darkest and scariest of the trilogy, building on both the creepy supernatural elements of The Fellowship of the Ring and the frighteningly real battle scenes of The Two Towers. But it is not just a case of bigger or darker being better, for the film is also the most absorbing of the three when taken as a work of fantasy. Without wishing to insult the brilliance of the first two films, this climactic instalment is the one which immerses you most in Middle Earth. You stop using the brief lulls to process the allegory and use those instead as breathing points as the darkness threatens to engulf everything.

As with Two Towers, part of the film's success lies in raising the stakes faced by both the hobbits and the world of men. At the end of the previous film, Gandalf remarks that "the Battle for Helm's Deep is over... the Battle for Middle Earth is about to begin." The intensity and scale of the film, with many different races coming together and clashing, makes even the most elaborate and thrilling elements of Two Towers fee like an opening skirmish. You really get the sense of a world not only the brink of collapse, but teetering over the abyss like a spinning sword that must eventually topple.Return of the King achieves this through a number of openly scary scenes as Frodo and Sam inch further towards Mordor. Seeing Minas Morgul lit up in green light is creepy, and as the column of energy rises shrieking from the tower, you feel the shivers running down your spine. Shelob the spider is terrifying, and the quieter moments with her on screen are proof that this trilogy does not rely solely on its score to create tension. There is genuine, petrifying fear as she stalks Frodo on the narrow road to Cirith Ungol, even for the lucky ones who aren't arachnophobic.But the most chilling moment of the film comes, ironically, in the hottest place on Middle Earth. In the centre of Mount Doom, at the end of their quest, Frodo stands holding the ring over the lava, ready to destroy it. As the lightning flashes all around him, his face is lit up like a skull as pure evil dangles right in front of him. When he turns to face Sam, he has the look somewhere between a possessed man and a frightened child - and then he takes the ring, smiles and disappears. Just when we have been convinced that our hero will do the right thing, evil rushes up in one last subtle push, and delivers a blow every bit as shattering as the ending of Chinatown.So much of Return of the King explores the theme of temptation, broadening it out beyond Frodo, Sam, Gollum and the ring. Early on in the film Pippin looks into the palantir and almost loses his mind as he comes into contact with Sauron. This is on the one hand a dark foreshadowing of what will happen to Frodo, and on the other hand a reflection of the curiosity of Smeagol, a curiosity which eventually turned him into Gollum. But in the eventual fate of the latter, the film puts a clever twist on its running theme, portraying Gollum's temptation or desire for the ring as the ultimate cause of its defeat. Gollum gives into his own temptation and inadvertently redeems the world in the process.

The film also gives us a rich character study in the form of Denethor. The character is Lear-like in his rejection of one of his offspring at the expense of another, and both Boromir and Faramir have elements of Cordelia about them. His descent into madness, whether out of grief, despair or paranoia, is a truly Shakespearian descent, and there is a rich counterpoint between Denethor and Theoden. The former clings to authority for its own sake, believing himself to be more worthy than any heir and disregarding the well-being of his people. The latter doubts his worth as King of Rohan, marching to his own death if it will defend those he seeks to love and honour.In the midst of these two kings, we have the man who would be king (apologies to Sean Connery). Return of the King finds Aragorn wrestling with his own demons and identity, having to finally decide whether to accept his fate at all costs (as has Theoden) or to remain alive at the expense of his people (Denethor). The scene of Aragorn calling on the army of the dead is more than simply a test of physical courage. In summoning this army he is forcing himself to confront and accept the responsibilities and pressures that would come from being king; it is as much a rite of passage as the trial run for the final battle.These rich characters both old and new quickly find themselves in a series of brilliant battles. You quickly stop trying to spot which shots are with effects and which aren't because you're so caught up in the action, thanks to the flawless design of the creatures and the internal logic and spontaneity of the battles. But as before, in the midst of this darker, more serious tone, there is still so much of Jackson's humour in the film which means it doesn't have to be watched with a stony face. The on-going rivalry between Gimli and Legolas is great fun, particularly when the latter brings down an entire Oliphant. There are also further hints of Jackson's horror past: the club-handed orc captain resembles the aliens out of Bad Taste, and there are hints of Brain Dead in the dead army's design (but sadly, no kung foo-fighting priests).There has been much debate over the ending of the film, with even its biggest fans complaining that it is too long and baggy. When Jackson's latest film, The Lovely Bones came out, critics pointed to this section as the birth of an indulgent streak which had carried through into King Kong and finally caught up with him. But in fact, all things considered, it is the only reasonable way that it could have ended.

Firstly, the goal of the trilogy was to faithfully represent the book, taking creative decisions where necessary which retained the themes and spirit of Tolkien's leviathan. The decisions to leave out the scourging of the Shire, or the epilogue involving the deaths of all the fellowship, are as much about judging tone as judging an audience's patience. Jackson gets the balance perfect, with all the important stories being rounded off and all the other ones hinted at in a way which explains everything. It is important to see the reunion of Aragorn and Arwen, but the blossoming love between Eowyn and Faramir as less significant.Secondly, the slower, more dreamlike execution is these scenes is appropriate. After all the rapidly cut battle scenes, with every story intertwining from multiple camera angles, having scenes which are longer and more languid might seem anticlimactic. But the purpose of these scenes is to adjust us sufficiently to make Frodo's farewell all the more heart-breaking. At the heart of these scenes is Frodo's struggle to readjust not just to life in the Shire, but to life itself. The quest did claim his life as Galadriel predicted: not by physically killing him, but by eroding his very self until he can no longer function or belong in the real world. The elves become like the angels in Wings of Desire, observing Man's woes and preparing Frodo for heaven, that he need no longer suffer the pain of his wounds or the torment of his memories.The Return of the King is a magnificent climax to a wonderful series of films. There is not a single scene or shot which feels badly assembled or out of place, and as always the impeccable design will have you wide-eyed with wonder. But like its predecessors, The Return of the King offers so much more than dazzling visuals. From its first to last frame it holds your heart in the palm of its hand, its ability to scare equalled by its subtlety with themes, characters and story. A true triumph.

Rating: 5/5
Verdict: The perfect end to a perfect trilogy