AN OMINOUS 'RING'Weighty words abound as Frodo endeavors to

Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is, by any measure, a crowning moment in cinema history.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers (this critic's favorite) and The Return of the King, Jackson brings over a thousand pages of J.R.R. Tolkien's hobbits and men, wizards and trolls, elves and dwarfs, tree-creatures and one conspicuously slimy, psychologically atwitter ring thief to life with glorious vision, obsession for detail, and fidelity to the Middle-earth imagined by the trilogy's Oxford don creator. It is an achievement of bewildering scale.

So why is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the 3-hour-and-20-minute final installment, less than awesome?

Is it because the tale's putative hero, mild-mannered hobbit Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), descends into a state of sulky shilly-shallying on his way to deposit that cursed ring in the Cracks of Doom? Or, perhaps, because Middle-earth is rife with portentously labeled landmarks like the Cracks of Doom?

Is it that "Mr. Frodo's" steadfast friend from the Shire, Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin), faces all manner of indignity as he accompanies his liege and the duo's shiftless guide, the schizoid Gollum (the voice and CGI-rendered visage of Andy Serkis), on their serpentine trek to Mount Doom?

Or is it the plethora of weighty pronouncements issued forth from every quarter: "It's the deep breath before the plunge," "The board is set - the pieces are moving," "Death is just another path we all must take," "The horses are restless and the men are quiet," "Fear! The city is rank with it!" "The age of man is over - the age of orcs has begun!" (This last from a knobby-headed, evil commandant who looks like a forefather to the Elephant Man.)

Perhaps it's the Jungian cornucopia of homoerotic symbolism (the swords! the staffs! the towers!) and the endless moony, moist gazes between members of the all-male Fellowship as they gird their loins for battle. There are times in Return of the King, as halfling faces halfling or king faces elf, when you want to stand up and shout, "Kiss him already!"

Or is it the twee trappings of Tolkien Land - a Renaissance Faire of magic jewels, swirling capes, flowing tresses, wise wizards, and that whole Teletubby townscape of the Shire? Just call Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck and Peregrin "Pippin" Took the metrosexuals of Middle-earth.

But enough complaining. Viggo Mortensen achieves true movie-stardom in Jackson's epic, playing the brooding mystery man Aragorn, son of Arathorn, who gains his rightful place as King Elessar in a coronation that makes the pomp and circumstance of Star Wars look cheesy. Gandalf (the knighted Ian McKellen) steers his white steed Shadowfax up thousands of steps to gallop into Minas Tirith, the White City of Gondor, in a blaze of magisterial haste. And the Siege of Gondor, with its league of storming trolls and behemoth beasts, is a marvel - though the cavalry-to-the-rescue arrival of the Men of the Mountains, a translucent wave of ghost warriors, is anticlimactic, to say the least.

Philadelphians can take particular delight in the ecstatic cry offered up in Return's third act: "The eagles are coming!" Alas, the magnificent, digitally rendered birds that swoop down to pluck exhausted bravehearts from a molten flood bear little resemblance to Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook and the fellowship of the Linc.

The Return of the King is too long; there's a veritable cascade of flowery, feel-good endings as events point back to Hobbiton, where "the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket." (We said it was twee.) The various story lines - Frodo and company's quest, Aragorn's mission, the tricky dilemma faced by Elf-princess Arwen (Liv Tyler), the feminist awakening of Eowyn (Miranda Otto), the mustering of the Riders of the Riddermark, that boat that's waiting on the docks of Grey Havens - come together in stilted, episodic ways. The narrative is less-than-seamless.

But nine hours and 17 minutes later (the combined length of the three films), The Lord of the Rings ends with glory, fanfare, cozy pub crawls, teary hugs, and more teary hugs. And did we say there are some teary hugs? The sun shines again o'er Middle-earth and evil Sauron has been put down. Finally, director Jackson can rest. The Elvish have left the building.

Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King *** (out of four stars).

Produced by Barrie M. Osborne, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh; directed by Jackson; written by Philippa Boyens, Jackson and Walsh; photography by Andrew Lesnie; music by Howard Shore; distributed by New Line Cinema.

Running time: 3 hours, 20 mins.

Frodo. . . Elijah Wood

Sam. . . Sean Astin

Aragorn. . . Viggo Mortensen

Gandalf. . . Ian McKellen

Legolas. . . Orlando Bloom

Parent's guide: PG-13 (violence, monstrous beings)

Playing at: area theaters