The Lord Of The Rings - The Two Towers DVD > Reviews > When two tribes go to war...

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Indifferent to it
Story	Satisfactory
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Good
Soundtrack	Unmemorable

Advantages:	If you liked the first one :  you'll love this !
Disadvantages:	Same as for the first one but slightly less

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Better movie than the first…more boring review

This is the second of New Zealander Peter Jackson's trilogy of films based on the famous J R R Tolkien books that comprise The Lord of the Rings. Anyone with a good memory will remember that I hated the first movie, considering it one of the most over-rated films of all time. This controversial opinion, admittedly very much against the general critical grain, generated lots of warm and fuzzy comments from Hobbit-lovers everywhere!

Well, to cut to the chase: this is a much better film. Consequently, this opinion won't be half as interesting!

Thankfully, this film has a bit more plot to it. Whilst The Fellowship of the Ring had the onerous task of setting up the overarching plot and introducing the characters which inhabit the world of Middle Earth, it could not have done it in a more tedious and turgid manner. With all the groundwork done "Towers" just gets right on with it. This is both a strength and a weakness, however, as it makes no concessions to anyone unfamiliar with the previous film or the book itself. In that sense the film finds it very difficult to exist as a separate entity.

As per the movie, I will assume that you have seen the original entry in the series. (If not, feel free to glance at my opinion on it: hint, hint!) The Fellowship has broken up into three separate parties, each having their own distinct yet connected strand of plot. Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Samwise Gangee (Sean Astin) continue their journey to Mordor, the home of the evil Lord Sauron, as part of their quest to destroy the Ring by throwing it into the fire of Mount Doom, where the Ring was originally forged and the only place powerful enough to destroy it. Sauron wants the Ring back. A previous owner of the Ring, now going by the name of Gollum, but formerly known as Smeagol, has been following them and he tries to snatch back the Ring. He is caught but Frodo feels an affinity with him, aware of the corrupting power of the Ring and fearing that he too will end up like the twisted creature. They agree, somewhat uneasily, to let Gollum lead them to Mordor.

Meanwhile, the other hobbits, Peregrin 'Pippin' Took (Billy Boyd) and Meriadoc 'Merry' Brandybuck (Dominic Monaghan) manage to escape from their captors during a vicious attack and escape into the forest. There, they soon encounter an ancient magical force in the form of a walking, talking tree! His name is Treebeard (voiced by John Rhys-Davies, who also plays Gimli), one of the members of the mystical race of the Ents. The young hobbits try to convince the trees to join the humans in their struggle against Sauron and his forces, pointing out the destruction of the forest caused by his servant Saruman (Christopher Lee). Their allegiance would make them powerful allies but they are reluctant to become embroiled in the affairs of humans.

The third party consists of Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), the elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and the dwarf Gimli. Originally in pursuit of Pippin and Merry they are soon detoured when they search the forest and come across an old friend, Gandalf (Ian McKellen) who they believed to have died at the hands (or claws) of the demonic Balrog. His eventual escape is foreseen at the very beginning of the movie in Frodo's dream, along with his seeming 'promotion' from Grey to White status. This group heads for the land of Rohan where Gandalf tries to free the King, Theoden (Bernard Hill), from the dark influences of Saruman and Grima Wormtongue (the wonderfully slimy Brad Dourif). Anticipating an attack by Saruman's army of Uruk Hais, Theoden leads his people to the fortress of Helm's Deep, against Gandalf's advice. There they wait for what will be an epic battle…

All that makes it sound quite exciting, doesn't it! Well, over all, it is. The three-hour running time does pass more easily than Fellowship but there are still passages of tedium when the action drags, the dialogue and story not sufficiently interesting to fully engage your interest. Ironically, the journey of Frodo et al, is a highlight of the movie, although they accomplish very little. This is entirely down to the wonderful performance of Andy Serkis as Gollum. Although he only provides the voice, he did act as a template for the CGI character and the animators have done a wonderful job of using the vocal cues to enhance the personality of the little critter. The fact that you come away feeling sympathy for the character is testament to the abilities of the actor and if anybody deserves an Oscar nod it's him.

The remainder of the cast all perform adequately, especially the newcomers. As the bulk of the film was shot consecutively there's no room for the actors to grow in their parts, in the same way as the Harry Potter movies for example. Although the cast did return to shoot brief scenes there are no noticeable discrepancies so presumably they all fell back into character rather easily.

The special effects, however, were done last year and there is some overall improvement. The new beasts that pop up are all impressive and the CGI is not quite as jarring. The Elt are perhaps the least effective. They may be animated, sentient lifeforms but, after all, they are still walking, talking trees! They just manage to avoid being silly, mainly thanks to Rhys-Davies imbuing the character with a certain amount of gravitas and wisdom. The huge battle scenes show off the improvements in technique and it is impressive to see the heaving masses of thousands upon thousands of soldiers. Credit must go to Jackson for the improvements, and you have to admire the sheer effort he has put in to such a difficult task. The score is still rather uninspiring, though, and the dull washed-out look of the original movie remains.

One thing I would have liked to have been made clear is the geography of the place. I never got a sense of how much distance there was between all the characters. How far apart are the titular towers of Sauron and Saruman, for example? Considering the amount of travelling everyone has been doing I quite expected the various folk to be farther apart. I also found it difficult to keep track of the different groups scattered throughout the movie. I had to get my Tolkien-obsessed friend to remind me who the bunch that Gandalf brings are and where they came from. I also don't really get the Grey/White Gandalf thing but I'm not sure if that will be explored further in the next one.

The one major plus that I will talk up is the final battle scene. Huge in scale, never have epic battles been more armoured in bloody grandeur. (Hmmm. Not sure about that last line: it could almost be dialogue from the movie!) It does go on a bit but the different stages are well delineated and, interspersed with the other ongoing storylines (happy TT?!), this helps to break the action up.

I just fall on the side of recommending this movie. Many of the problems have been sorted out but it still somehow fails to engage the imagination in quite the same way as the second instalments of the Harry Potter and Star Wars franchises, both of which it could be seen to be competing against. (Well, I had to make a controversial statement, somewhere!) On the other hand, my wife, who loved the first one, thought this was even better and can't wait for the final part, next year. How about that for a balanced viewpoint!

Hopefully, my criticisms this time round won't be met with quite the same amount of vitriol as last time (but hey, in hindsight, it was rather fun!) but then I haven't been as harsh in my judgement and have been able to see some of the positive values of this exercise. Will I be fully converted? I guess we'll have to wait and see how I feel after the third and concluding part of the trilogy, The Return of the King.

Same place, next year, people…