The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers – Cinema

• Cert:
• Running time: 179 minutes
• Year: 2002
• Released: 18th December 2002
• Widescreen Ratio: 2.35:1
• Sound: DTS-ES/Dolby EX 6.1/SDDS

Director: Peter Jackson

Screenplay: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Stephen Sinclair & Phillipa Boyens (based on the novel by J.R.R Tolkien)

Cast:

The eagerly awaited second instalment of Peter Jackson’s Lord Of TheRings trilogy finally arrived this Christmas.

The epic journey for audiences continue as we catch up with the broken ‘Fellowship’; Aragorn,Gimli and Legolas are pursuing the Uruk-hai kidnappers of Pippin andMerry, Sam and Frodo continue their exodus to Mount Doom to destroy theOne Ring, and Gandalph’s fate is revealed in a gripping continuation ofthe last film’s battle with the Balrog demon in the Caves Of Moria…

The Two Towers is the “middle child” of the trilogy. This means itimmediately loses the freshness and uniqueness of “Fellowship”, or theinevitable dramatic pay-off of 2003’s climax with The Return Of TheKing. The film’s sole mission is to broaden the scope of the story,introduce new characters, and develop the existing ones. Thankfully,Jackson is a master storyteller and expertly condenses and enhancesJ.R.R Tolkien’s source material into a fitting cinematic adaptation –with the help of co-writers Fran Walsh, Stephen Sinclair and PhillipaBoyens.

The cast all continue to do stirling work, despite the fact many keycharacters receive less screen time. Christopher Lee‘s Saruman and IanMcKellen‘s Gandalph are, in particular, pushed deep into the backgroundfor this instalment, leaving Viggo Mortensen‘s Aragorn to assume thelead role – even grabbing more screen time than Elijah Wood‘s Frodo!This change in character dominance can be a little frustrating,particularly as some of the brand new characters introduced make verylittle impact – with the exception of Bernard Hill‘s excellent KingThéoden. Mirando Otto‘s Éowyn hints at a romantic subplot with Aragornthat never properly materializes, Brad Dourif‘s Wormtongue is greatvalue but quickly pushed aside, while Liv Tyler‘s Arwen has to make dowith a few flashbacks! Other characters such as Faramir and Éomér arecruelly underdeveloped under the weight of the ever-increasing castsize.

The plot for “Two Towers” also differs from “Fellowship”, as it isfractured into three sub-plots; Aragorn’s rallying of Mankind at Rohanto deter an army of 10,000 Uruk-hai orcs, Merry and Pippin’s adventurewith Treebeard (a talking tree known as an Ent), and Sam and Frodo’sincreasingly desperate trek to Mount Doom with the help of Gollum – anemaciated ex-Ringbearer with a split-personality seen briefly in thelast film.

This separation of the narrative makes the lengthy running time passmuch quicker than the slightly meandering “Fellowship” did, particularlyonce the Helm’s Deep sequence begins in Act III. However, the entireTreebeard subplot is unsatisfying until its crowd-pleasing conclusion –with all those scenes being particularly repetitive and oblique. Thevisual effects employed to bring Treebeard to life are about as good asyou’d expect, but the ridiculousness of a walking talking tree meansthere’s a constant sense of misplaced humour with them.

Elsewhere, the special effects are truly breathtaking. The Balrog ismore physically impressive than in “Fellowship”, and there are plenty ofother beasts that stampede through the movie at regular intervals. But,of course, the real jewel in the crown is Gollum; a computer-generatedactor based on the motion-capture data of actor Andy Serkis, who alsoprovides Gollum’s rasping voice. The technical achievement with Gollumis a landmark for CGI characters, as he gives a real performance in thefilm. His range of expressions and integration into scenes arephenomenal to behold and regardless of how he was achieved he’s easilythe most interesting character in the entire film. He may not be totallyphoto-realistic, but he’s damn close at times. Gollum is a fabulousachievement that should take George Lucas’ ILM by surprise after theircomparatively inferior effort with Yoda in “Attack Of The Clones”.

While Gollum will no doubt dominate your thinking after watching “TheTwo Towers”, so too will the enormous battle sequence at Helm’s Deep; astronghold at the bottom of a Rohan valley, stormed by thousands ofUruk-hai in the final scenes. After the relative quiet of “Fellowship”in action terms, Jackson really lets himself have fun with these scenes.The hordes of CGI soldiers are awesome to behold, and the staging of theaction quite magnificent. The impact does begin to wane after a while,particularly because of the inter-cutting back to the slow Treebeardsubplot, but it’s still a great technical triumph that deservesaccolades.

Overall, “The Two Towers” is a fitting continuation of “Fellowship”,although it lacks the first film’s sense of adventure and storytellingprowess – a problem that Tolkien himself should take the blame for.Peter Jackson manages to improve Tolkien’s narrative for his adaptationby taking far more liberties with the plot, but the result is still lessimmersive than “Fellowship”. As expected, this sequel does manage toeclipses its progenitor in terms of rousing action sequences andstartling special-effects, but little else truly improves on the lastfilm.

But don’t get me wrong – “The Two Towers” is still a very enjoyablereturn to Middle Earth that introduces us to plenty of new charactersand wonderfully builds up anticipation for the “The Return Of The King”next Christmas. However, between the CGI eye-candy, one still gets thefeeling this “middle child” will become the lesser instalment inJackson’s trilogy, just as the book is widely considered the weakest ofthe three…

DIRECTION
PERFORMANCES
SPECIAL FX
SOUND/MUSIC


OVERALL