Thanks to the most excellent fellowship that is the staff of the Wilburforce Foundation, I was presented with a surprise last-minute ticket to the 11AM matinee of Return of the King at Cinerama yesterday morning.

My expectations were pretty high. This film blew them away. I’m not one of those people who is easily stunned by a movie, but it is truly hard to say how absolutely astoundingly good ROTK really was. What a worthy finish.

Don’t worry, no spoilers here.

A few very quick thoughts:

– It was amazingly well paced (unlike the first two films in the trilogy) and 3.5 hours flew by.

– The visual effects were mind-boggling, even compared to the first two. The extra time WETA had to work on this one really shows.

– I got to sit next to Gandalf (Tim Greyhavens). Hot damn!