THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING (12A, 201mins) Action. Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Bernard Hill, Miranda Otto, David Wenham, Karl Urban, John Noble, Hugo Weaving, Liv Tyler, Cate Blanchett.

All good things must come to an end. And so it is with Peter Jackson's audacious, wildly imaginative and boundlessly thrilling adaptation of JRR Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, which reaches its cataclysmic conclusion in The Return Of The King.

When last we visited Tolkien's magical kingdom, Frodo (Wood) and loyal friend Sam (Astin) were continuing their perilous trek to Mount Doom, guided by the mysterious Gollum (voiced by Andy Serkis).

However, Frodo's strength is waning and his addiction to The Ring is gradually consuming him.

Such is The Ring's influence over Frodo that the plucky Hobbit allows the devious Gollum to poison his mind against Sam and drive the two friends apart.

Having achieved his despicable goal, Gollum then leads Frodo into a terrifying trap and a spine-chilling encounter with the giant spider Shelob.

Meanwhile, after his heroic actions at Helm's Deep, Aragorn (Mortensen) is finally revealed as the true heir to the throne and the one man who could, potentially, unite the warring factions.

Aided by the Rohan forces under the command of King Theoden (Hill), as well as loyal friends Gandalf (McKellen), Legolas (Bloom), Gimli (Rhys-Davies), Merry (Monaghan) and Pippin (Boyd), Aragorn prepares for the final battle against the myriad battalions under Sauron's control.

The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King is a tour-de-force of elegant story-telling, masterful special effects and intensely moving drama.

Action sequences attain dizzy new heights, including the earth-shattering final confrontation, which sees the camera swoop among more than 600,000 warriors as they fight to the bloody death while 70ft-long flying Fell Beasts dive-bomb the ground and eight-storey-tall, mammoth-like Mumakil stampede beleaguered foot soldiers.

For all of the bombast and spectacle, The Return Of The King is a deeply human drama, borne out by intense performances from the ensemble cast.

Towering above them all is Astin's unforgettable turn as Sam, who comes into his own in this final instalment. He is the trilogy's unsung hero.

As the story enters its final chapter, Jackson finds it almost impossible to bid farewell to Tolkien's characters. Thus, he orchestrates half a dozen curtain call scenes, one after the next, to bid adieu to the remaining members of the Fellowship.

Sure enough, the film ends where it began, as all good stories must.

Rating: 10/10