When you talk about movie trilogies, it's usually not in favorable terms. Most of them tend to begin strong and then fizzle at the end like the "Terminator" trilogy, the "Matrix" trilogy, and particularly, the "Scream" trilogy.

But everyone who has been looking forward to the final chapter in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, "The Return of the King," can definitely take heart. The final film in J.R.R. Tolkien's sword and sorcery fantasy of a hobbit's quest to rid middle earth of the evil ring of power and change the course of human history is as true to the novel as the first two, and in some cases outdoes them both.

Peter Jackson's final vision of a medieval world populated by men, dwarves, elves, wizards, hobbits and monsters is nothing short of epic. It's epic in vision, epic in proportion, epic in scope and very large on action. In fact, if you want to see just how big a production it really is, see it from the front row of the theater like I did. Of course I didn't really do that on purpose, I just figured that since it was Monday there wouldn't be an enormous crowd for the 2:45 show. And since "The Return of the King," is nearly three and a half hours long, I really didn't see the need to sit through another half hour of Coca Cola and new car commercials along with a whole string of trailers for movies I probably won't see anyway.

Of course, I should have realized the raw popularity of "The Return of the King" because when I got inside the theater and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I quickly realized that the entire auditorium was packed. I wandered up into the mezzanine, pointing at what looked like empty seats. They were all saved. I wandered down to the rows of seats in front of the mezzanine. To my chagrin, they were filled with live bodies too.

Slowly, standing there bathed in the flickering light from the screen, the truth dawned on me. There were only a dozen seats left in the whole house. And all of them were in the first row.

I don't know if many of you have even seen a movie from the front row, but this is what it's like. The screen is ENORMOUS. You nearly have to be lying on your back, staring straight up, just to see it. And if there's any action, your head ends up swiveling like a spectator at a ping-pong match. And everything is HUGE! Especially close ups. Sitting that close to the screen, people's nostrils are as big as your head, and you find yourself hoping that no one sneezes, cause if they so, you're finished.

Nonetheless, just as "The Two Towers," (the sequel to "The Fellowship of the Ring"), began with the fate of the Wizard, Gandalf (Ian McKellen), "The Return of the King" begins with the story of how Smeagal (Andy Serkis) found the ring, murdered his companion and ultimately became the vile little creature called Gollum, reluctant ally of the hobbits Sam (Sean Astin) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) who are desperately trying to reach Mount Doom to destroy the ring before its power allows the evil Sauron and the forces of Mordor to destroy mankind.

It's interesting to note how life imitates art, because at this point I suddenly found that I had to deal with some vile little creatures of my own. While I was staring up at the screen, a half crouched woman ran past me leading two little boys by the hand. She whispered something to them that I couldn't quite hear, then plunked them down in the two seats beside me and promptly disappeared.

I looked pensively to my left. These were little kids -- no older than five. Fortunately, since "The Return of the King" begins slowly one of the boys promptly fell asleep. But the other one -- the kid sitting next to me -- didn't. He decided it was the time to squirm. It was the time to bounce. It was the time to flip the seat up and down, sprawl on the floor and then see if he could sit on the edge of the seat once it was in the upright position. Then he decided it was fun to sit on the edge and slide down it into the open position -- over and over for about a half an hour.

Although Jackson's vision of the world of middle earth is nothing short of stunning, particularly when you consider that his only directing credits prior to "Lord of the Rings" include B-movie splatter flicks such as "Dead Alive," "Heavenly Creatures" and the enjoyable but totally misconceived and uneven ghost story "The Frighteners," comparisons of his earlier work to what was currently on the screen more or less crumbled when the kid beside me quit bouncing, ran off for a moment and came back with a really large bag of popcorn. Once he methodically discovered that he could cram the bag in both arm rests several times, it was time to eat it, throw it at the screen, throw it on his sleeping friend and then spill it everywhere, especially in my lap.

So as the heroic Aragon (Viggo Mortensen) his elfin ally Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and their fierce dwarf companion Ginli (John Rhys Davies) try and rally the men of Rohan to ride to the defense of Gondor, which is besieged by the monsters of Mordor, I'd finally had it with the little monster beside me. So I turned to him with gritted teeth and said, in a loud whisper, "Kid! Do you think you could maybe sit still and CUT IT OUT?"

Well, he must have taken that as a challenge, because while Minas was being violently assaulted on the screen, the little darling beside me turned sideways in his seat and started to stare at me.

Have you ever tried to watch a flick with a five-year-old staring at you? Forget it. It doesn't work. And every time I turned to my left, he just gave me a wide grin. Obviously, he thought it was fun. So while the fate of humanity was being weighed on the HUGE screen above me and my neck was quickly stiffening trying to watch it all, I had this kid boring a hole through the side of my head almost daring me to turn around.

So I ignored him, trying instead to concentrate on the spectacular special effects involved in the giant production above. As with its predecessors "The Return of the King" employs state of the art effects. While some were obvious CGI effects (like the scene in which Legolas takes on a gigantic elephant-like creature), others were incredible.

Perhaps the best is the scene in which Gollum tricks a somewhat befuddled Frodo into entering the cave of a gigantic spider, and Sam has to fight it off to save him. This is probably the best and most convincing giant spider scene ever filmed, far outdoing the giant spiders in "Eight-Legged Freaks" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."

But the scene is much too intense for younger viewers, and I can authoritatively say this without consulting a single parents group. I know it because during the entire scene the kid next to me was STANDING on his seat clutching handfuls of my jacket sleeve while screaming in my left ear. It sort of made me wish I could find the little darling's mother and feed her to the spider.

But after that, he finally got bored, laid flat on the seat staring upward, and I thought he'd fallen asleep. But just as the climactic battle between the forces of good and evil reached a crescendo his friend, who HAD been asleep for most of the movie woke up. Then it was time for them to loudly argue over whether Orlando Bloom was cooler in this flick than he was in "Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl," argue about why one of the kids had a red jacket and the other had a blue one, and accuse each other of eating all the popcorn. When I told them to be quiet, they didn't listen. When the couple on their other side told them to be quiet they didn't listen. When the people in the row behind us told them to be quiet, they decided it was time to start singing all the songs they'd learned in Sunday Bible school.

So I really have no idea how the film actually ended, although I think it had something to do with Gandalf and Jesus...who loves me, this I know...for the bible tells me sooooo....