The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers
After the nearly overwhelming cinematic goodness that was Fellowship Of the Ring, in 2002 it was time for the story to continue with franchise director Peter Jackson (who seemed to sacrifice his entire career while making constant adaptations of J.R.R Tolkienâs work to diminishing audience interest and returns) giving us the second chapter of the ever changing world of Middle Earth with its various conflicts and alliances all while facing a virtual Armageddon at the hands of its resident version of The Devil (Sauron) and his slavish followers. Despite being a film that certainly suffers from Middle Episode Syndrome, Jackson has still done a superb job of crafting an intricate and beautiful looking adventure fantasy film. The visuals remain as impressive as ever in showing the landscapes and various constructs of the various lands and kingdoms that make up this completely imaginary universe where Men are still considered the grandest of all beings (perhaps because they donât have any really strict rules and traditions to abide by) despite the fact that theyâre surrounded by immortal Elves and Wizards (who are practically godlike figures) along with annoying Dwarves and of course the lovable little Hobbits who care for nothing more than to cook, eat, smoke and relax. It’s amazing that even at a nearly four hours in length, Jackson still keeps things running at a brisk pace, cutting back and forth between different characters and settings and never letting things get bogged down too much. The story begins pretty much where the previous film left off as the highly touted Fellowship crumbles to pieces with Sean Beanâs Boromir bravely dying in combat and its various other members being scattered in all different directions. As a result, this film really winds up giving us three separate storylines with the first one featuring ring bearer Frodo (Elijah Wood) and loyal best friend Sam (Sean Astin) continuing their trek to Mordor to destroy the ring all while being guided and led by the freakish Gollum (Andy Serkis), a former holder of the ring who used to be a Hobbit himself but is now a grossly misshapen creature, with no points awarded for guessing that they get just a little bit sidetracked. Storyline number 2 features main heroes Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Gimli (John Rhys Davies) and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) meeting up with Ian McKellanâs resurrected Gandalf (now promoted to being a âWhite Wizardâ) before getting caught up in a siege by The Orcs (who are impressively fierce looking warriors but who sadly go down real soft and easy in actual live combat) on a small kingdom whose ruler (Bernard Hill) has had his mind clouded by a duplitious wizard / advisor (Brad Dourif, a VERY welcome addition to the lineup) who in turn is a minion of Saruman (Christopher Lee, assuming full time duties in this entry as the primary central villain), the evil White Wizard who is in essence orchestrating everything on the ground to prepare for the satanic Sauronâs much talked about return. And storyline number 3 follows the two goofy, comic relief Hobbits (Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd) who were carried off by Orcs at the end of the previous film now finding themselves lost in the woods before realizing that the trees themselves can come alive and talk, leading to plenty of comedic moments prior to the big showdowns at the end. Of course, that doesnât prevent the storyline from maintaining a constant, annoying pattern (brought over from the first film) of having a major character seemingly appear to die and then having the others cry and fret about it for at least ten minutes before it is revealed that the character is actually NOT dead at all along with showing the gimmick for just how exactly their death was prevented. As for the cast, the returning regulars acquit themselves well, but the additions are mostly fairly bland, with the exceptions being Bernard Hill bringing some dignity to the role of King Theoden, and Dourif all but stealing the show as Wormtongue, though it’s a damm shame that he didn’t get more screen time, as heâs obviously a good enough actor to play the lead villain in a big budget, big studio project up to and including possibly even a comic book film. As for Serkis, he does a fine job as Gollum, as even though the character has been overrated by fanboys, there’s some real empathy on display here with the central idea coming across that Frodo wants to somehow âsaveâ him simply because he looks at him and manages to take genuine pity on his poor misbegotten soul even as the script goes to great pains to try and portray Gollum as being obviously schizophrenic in his overall personality, talking to himself out loud about whether or not he should trust âThe Masterâ (Frodo) just because he has the ring or otherwise just find a way to kill him and take back the ring for himself. Among the other newbies, we also have David Wenham as the brother of the late Boromir who it turns out laments the fact that his brother always commanded more respect than he did and Miranda Otto as the de facto âtrueâ love interest for Aragorn as opposed to the woefully immortal Liv Tyler who cannot be with him for that very reason even as Tyler herself enjoys yet another measly five minutes of screen time alongside Hugo Weaving as her father Elrond (although it may still very well be impossible to say that Weaving has ever given a bad performance in any movie that he has ever been in despite the brevity of his own screen time or the quality of the movie in and of itself). This of course all leads up to the big battle scene on three fronts that pretty much comprises the entire last hour of the movie as Aragorn and Company hole up with the residents of Rohan (along with a battalion of Elves who arrive just in time) in a complex on the bottom of a chasm to make a not so last stand against your usual army of 10,000 inept Orcs while a similar siege takes place at Boromirâs old stomping grounds and then best of all The Tree People decide to launch an all out assault on Sarumanâs lair simply because Saruman (conservation nut that he is) has burned and destroyed large chunks of forest in order to keep his war machine purring right along, thus making it one of the most rousing battle sequences in cinema history to say the least although the last thirty minutes of the film doesn’t quite have the same emotional impact of Fellowship’s final scenes (the sacrifice of Boromir was always going to be pretty hard to top). Really, if there’s one major fault that the film suffers from, it’s that it’s not Fellowship, where we got to meet and get to know the main players as we enjoyed their chemistry and interactions, though the additions here in the end feels too much like character overload. The FX on display though are spectacular as could be expected with the tree creaturesâ overall look probably being the most impressive thing, and indeed the biggest laugh comes when the Treebeard character three quarters of the way through the film happily tells Pippin and Merrie âWell we’ve decided you’re not Orcs.â while the other major battles elsewhere have already been raging on for a good long time. Meanwhile, Cate Blanchettâs Galadriel is sadly reduced to a mere ten second cameo, and the way that Frodo and Sam come ever so close to completing their mission (actually making it to the gates of Sauronâs lair) which in turn would finish the entire story makes it feel just a bit like the story is being unnecessarily padded out so that thereâs enough room left for one more movie (keeping in mind that this is how Tolkien intended it to be) even as it seems that Sauron might be the most unseen and woefully underdeveloped supervillain in the history of movies despite the fact that everyone just seems so damn scared of him. But thankfully when you do have actors the caliber of Christopher Lee and Brad Dourif filling the bad guy shoes here, youâre probably not going to find yourself going too far wrong. Still, in the end you just can’t fault the sheer craftsmenship of the filmmaking that we get to see with Jackson seemingly wanting to get every last detail exactly right, and with that attitude coming from a filmmaker such as he is one comes to appreciate this as the prelude to a spectacular final chapter…
8/10