There are so many reviews already of Return of the King that I won't waste time going over the basic plot point. The question at the end of the day is "how good is it?"  The answer is - very good.  Now, I have some minor spoilers in here so just skip the rest if you're really paranoid. I'm not giving away anything crucial, just tidbits.

On IMDB, I gave Fellowship of the Ring a 10. It's the only movie I've ever given a 10 to.  I gave the Two Towers a 9.  I would give this a 9 also.  The movie is so well crafted that at times it almost seems like an art film.  But all goodness aside, since we've established that it's a great film that all should go and see let me focus a bit on some of the negatives that I think a lot of other people have thought of but I haven't really seen voiced:

1. Too much melodrama.  I am so sick of "tender moments" between Frodo and Sam. I was getting pretty tired of seeing scene after scene of tear jerking due to Frodo and Sam.
2. They took out my favorite two parts from the books: The encounter with Saruman and Gandalf's confrontation with the Witch King. 
3. At some point I was hoping that Gandalf, the wizard, would actually do some...you know...wizarding.
4. I was really hoping to see Aragorn use the Palantir. It was a powerful moment in the books and would have fit in perfectly when they were hoping to convince Sauron that they were going to attack Mordor in force.
5. Too many skirmeshes, not enough solid battling.
6. Too much melodrama part 2: Just general tear jerking scenes. If you have too many of them, they just lose impact.
7. Editing could have been better. The tower coming down seem to take forever.  The ship sailing into the west scene took so long that my mind started to wander.
8. Where are the elves? They help save Rohan but in the actual battle for Middle Earth itself they're not around? They were in the book.
9. The characterization of Denethor was poor. That is not at all what he was like. He wasn't some disgusting craven fool. He was a powerful man whose use of the Palantir crushed his mighty spirit over time.

That's pretty much it. I am already looking forward to it again.  I've gotten a lot of letters from people concerning my two articles about the world of middle earth (here and here). Yes, I'm a Tolkien fan.  So how well do the movies fit with the books? Well, significant changes were made, particularly in Return of the King. But the movies definitely capture the spirit of the books which is what mattered to me.

There were some changes and omissions that did bug me. I didn't feel the the Eowyn portion was handled very well with regards to Faramir. Those character arcs aren't really concluded satisfactory.  Eowyn does find love -- in Faramir who was a noble, gentle spirit.  I was also disappointed with the portrayal of Denethor who was, next to Aragorn, the most powerful human in the world in terms of body, mind and spirit. But he is portrayed in the move as pathetic figure worthy of scorn. Certainly the conclusion of the Gandalf and Saruman rivalry was non-existent.  So for those reasons I can't say it was a perfect movie but damn it was good. 

I knit pick this stuff because it's material I've loved and cherished for so very long. I know I couldn't have done it anywhere near as well as Peter Jackson did it though. His attention to detail was amazing.

So go see it.  And if you have any Tolkien or Middle Earth questions, just respond here and I'll try to answer as best I can.