Given wall-to-wall Net and media coverage of this, I wasn't going to burden all here with my own two cents' worth (slightly adapted) until I saw Mr Editor chip in himself, belatedly. ;-)
Well, why not?
It's interesting to note in just that last piece, for instance, that two characters (Merry and Pippin), whom Eric O. didn't think got the character development they merited were, to me, perfectly OK but incidental, while I was as fascinated as "the Kid" (my Marianne) by the lengthy unfolding of events regarding a "treacherous little scum" Olsen wanted out of it once and for all!
To each his own, huh? Especially regarding a "cine-opera" more than half the length of Wagner's tetralogy on a 'Ring' theme...
And half the fun of Blogcritics lies in how we don't all see eye to eye.
My own focus, in the entry from my place, included a thought or two on the analogies I've read some like to draw out of all this, especially since Tolkien himself said he couldn't abide them. Whether he meant it is another question...
So here, FWIW, is what went up at 'taliesin's log'.
Oh yes. A very happy 2004 to all fellow BC contributors! It's been fun to join your not so serried ranks.

Genius? No.
A major landmark in the history of cinema? Yes, assuredly.
A masterpiece? Now that we've seen the whole, most certainly yes, and one which people will keep watching as long as film and DVD exist in anything like their current shape.

'The Return of the King,' all three hours of it, appears to have silenced all but the most querulous and argumentative quibblers Internet-wide regarding the brilliance and depth of Peter Jackson's effort in bringing Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' to the big screen.
For all my minor objections to a handful of aspects of the New Zealand director's (IMDb bio) opus, if I could vote for the trilogy as a whole, it's one of the very few achievements listed at the Internet Movie Database to which I'd award an almost perfect 10.
'The Return of the King' (on "official" site) is an epic in its own right, from its admirable opening scenes on Smeagol still as hobbit and his transformation into Gollum by the workings of the ring of power to the final battles in the war for the fate of the world.
What I should now like to see is some first-rate Paris cinema (and others elsewhere) pluck up the commercial courage to treat us to the three-year trilogy in one stupendous go, all nine hours in a day. Knowing the way this town operates cinematically, I'll be surprised if no movie-house director or chain decides to do this in the next year or so.
No fan of small screens, television or home video, I see no other way to give hardened big-movie buffs a chance to enjoy the sheer consistency of excellence which Jackson brought to his vision of the vast and richly layered tale: a vision with which he managed to inspire the whole of his cast and the big film crews, teams of artists and special effects experts who joined in his very personal dream of how the story might be given flesh, light and sound.