Dan Owen reviews
The Lord Of The Rings:
Viewed at Warner Home Cinemas, Swindon
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:
Aragorn: Viggo Mortensen
The eagerly awaited second instalment of Peter Jackson's Lord Of The
Rings 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 and
Merry, Sam and Frodo continue their exodus to Mount Doom to destroy the
One Ring, and Gandalph's fate is revealed in a gripping continuation of
the last film's battle with the Balrog demon in the Caves Of Moria...
The Two Towers The Return Of The
King . 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 enhances
J.R.R Tolkien's source material into a fitting cinematic adaptation –
with the help of co-writers Fran Walsh, Stephen Sinclair and Phillipa
Boyens.
The cast all continue to do stirling work, despite the fact many key
characters receive less screen time. Christopher Lee 's Saruman and Ian
McKellen 's Gandalph are, in particular, pushed deep into the background
for this instalment, leaving Viggo Mortensen 's Aragorn to assume the
lead 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 very
little impact – with the exception of Bernard Hill 's excellent King
Théoden. Mirando Otto 's Éowyn hints at a romantic subplot with Aragorn
that never properly materializes, Brad Dourif 's Wormtongue is great
value but quickly pushed aside, while Liv Tyler 's Arwen has to make do
with a few flashbacks! Other characters such as Faramir and Éomér are
cruelly underdeveloped under the weight of the ever-increasing cast
size.
The plot for "Two Towers" also differs from "Fellowship", as it is
fractured into three sub-plots; Aragorn's rallying of Mankind at Rohan
to deter an army of 10,000 Uruk-hai orcs, Merry and Pippin's adventure
with Treebeard (a talking tree known as an Ent), and Sam and Frodo's
increasingly desperate trek to Mount Doom with the help of Gollum – an
emaciated ex-Ringbearer with a split-personality seen briefly in the
last film.
This separation of the narrative makes the lengthy running time pass
much quicker than the slightly meandering "Fellowship" did, particularly
once the Helm's Deep sequence begins in Act III. However, the entire
Treebeard subplot is unsatisfying until its crowd-pleasing conclusion –
with all those scenes being particularly repetitive and oblique. The
visual effects employed to bring Treebeard to life are about as good as
you'd expect, but the ridiculousness of a walking talking tree means
there's a constant sense of misplaced humour with them.
Elsewhere, the special effects are truly breathtaking. The Balrog is
more physically impressive than in "Fellowship", and there are plenty of
other beasts that stampede through the movie at regular intervals. But,
of course, the real jewel in the crown is Gollum; a computer-generated
actor based on the motion-capture data of actor Andy Serkis, who also
provides Gollum's rasping voice. The technical achievement with Gollum
is a landmark for CGI characters, as he gives a real performance in the
film. His range of expressions and integration into scenes are
phenomenal to behold and regardless of how he was achieved he's easily
the most interesting character in the entire film. He may not be totally
photo-realistic, but he's damn close at times. Gollum is a fabulous
achievement that should take George Lucas' ILM by surprise after their
comparatively inferior effort with Yoda in "Attack Of The Clones".
While Gollum will no doubt dominate your thinking after watching "The
Two Towers", so too will the enormous battle sequence at Helm's Deep; a
stronghold at the bottom of a Rohan valley, stormed by thousands of
Uruk-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 the
action quite magnificent. The impact does begin to wane after a while,
particularly because of the inter-cutting back to the slow Treebeard
subplot, but it's still a great technical triumph that deserves
accolades.
Overall, "The Two Towers" is a fitting continuation of "Fellowship",
although it lacks the first film's sense of adventure and storytelling
prowess – a problem that Tolkien himself should take the blame for.
Peter Jackson manages to improve Tolkien's narrative for his adaptation
by taking far more liberties with the plot, but the result is still less
immersive than "Fellowship". As expected, this sequel does manage to
eclipses its progenitor in terms of rousing action sequences and
startling special-effects, but little else truly improves on the last
film.
But don't get me wrong - "The Two Towers" is still a very enjoyable
return to Middle Earth that introduces us to plenty of new characters
and wonderfully builds up anticipation for the "The Return Of The King"
next Christmas. However, between the CGI eye-candy, one still gets the
feeling this "middle child" will become the lesser instalment in
Jackson's trilogy, just as the book is widely considered the weakest of
the three...
DIRECTION
PERFORMANCES
SPECIAL FX
SOUND/MUSIC
OVERALL
Review copyright © Dan Owen, 2002.
E-mail Dan Owen
Read all three of Dan Owen's Lord of the Rings reviews:
2001 The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King
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DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
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