Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen)
I watched Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring through the eyes of a kid who had practically witnessed the rebirth of a unique kind of magic. It is a magic that can only come from being completely immersed in another world, time and place, much like the Star Wars and Star Trek sagas that preceded it. My viewing experience was enough to get me interested in finishing the novels by J.R.R. Tolkien so that I could find out what happened. Only recently have I actually gotten through the entire trilogy of books, and now I eagerly await the release of the final cinematic installment, The Return of the King.
It's important to note that, above all else, what director Peter Jackson has fashioned to date for these films is an entertaining yarn that offers relentless action, adventure and drama. That he was able to even create a yarn this entertaining using Tolkien's works as a reference point is nothing short of a miracle. For the books are among some of the most tedious things I've ever read. Yet Jackson finds a myriad of ways to trim the literary fat, for there is a great deal of it, and produce a better end result by keeping the character roster -- as lengthy as it necessarily already has to be -- mercifully to a bare minimum.
When last we saw the band of nine chosen heroes striving to save the world in Fellowship, the astute wizard Gandalf had fallen while doing battle with a demon, and the noble-hearted but weak-willed human Boromir had been killed by an attacking group of ugly orcs. In The Two Towers, hobbits Frodo and Sam (Elijah Wood and Sean Astin) are on their way to Mount Doom to cast the evil ring into the fire from whence it came. They are accompanied by the bi-polar creature Gollum (Andy Serkis), who finds it difficult to contain his impulses with respect to the precious ring. Meanwhile, the ranger of noble descent named Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), the dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) and the elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom) are hot on the pursuit of a tribe of super-orcs called Uruk-hai. The monsters have kidnapped their hobbit friends Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Merry (Dominic Monaghan).
Of course, none of the parties can predict the complications that will arise. A visit to the king Theoden (Bernard Hill) proves dangerous for Aragorn and company, once they realize that he has been put under an evil spell by the wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee). His snaky sidekick Grima Wormtongue has been serving the dark lord Sauron and this causes much grief for his niece Eowyn (Miranda Otto) and leader of the Riders of Rohan, Eomer (Karl Urban). Pippin and Merry end up encountering a strange race of living tree creatures named Ents, and Frodo and Sam are captured by a group of warriors from the fallen city of Gondor.
Despite Jackson's best efforts, with The Two Towers it is a little more difficult to keep track of all the relationships and character names this time around. The film will almost certainly equate a repeat viewing for those unfamiliar with the novels if one wishes to understand the rich tapestry of titles and motivations at work here. Where the movie falters in comparison with The Fellowship of the Ring is in its frequent interludes (featuring elves or flashbacks) and its inability to unite its 3 or 4 subplots cohesively. One need only think of a movie like Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back to see how much better a narrative can be presented if the storyline is to be split into several parts at once (Tolkien did not do this in the books).
While the effects in the film are inspired, a few of them fall flat. Notably, the Ents are distractingly computer-generated, and in the scenes where Pippin and Merry get carried around on one Ent's shoulders, they might as well have made the backdrop bright blue for all its artificiality. Treebeard, the leader of the Ents, is irritatingly voiced by John Rhys-Davies, which detracts from his jovial, alternate performance as Gimli. This time around, the ringwraiths have abandoned their horses and exchanged them for winged creatures. These too look rather phony in a few key scenes, as do a gaggle of devil-hounds that are obviously a bunch of graphics that must not have gotten enough time spent on them in post-production. Fortunately, the effects for the battle for Helm's Deep are better. As thousands of orcs descend on the last refuge for the people of Rohan, a fight ensues that is well played out and features lots of swashbuckling stunts, feats of daring-do, and even a few moments of much-needed comic relief.
It took me two viewings of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and an agonizing two-year long attempt to finish the novels before I felt comfortable writing a review for it. The movie does improve in quality and unity with subsequent viewings, but it still lacks a kind of balance because it focuses so completely on battle scenes for all of its subplots. Nevertheless, this is a fine and worthy successor to Fellowship and sets the stage well for the conclusion of this enchanting and magical trilogy.
