Lord
of the Rings: The Two Towers Stands Tall
Lord
of the Rings: The Two Towers Stands Tall
I have been prefacing every discussion I've had about Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers since seeing it in preview by saying that I really loved
the film. It continues the stunning cinematic achievement that director Peter
Jackson began with The Fellowship of the Ring last year and takes
the characters and the adventure to darker, scarier places. I truly can't wait
for the third film to complete the trilogy.
That said, I also haven't been able to hide the fact that I was a little disappointed
with this the second film, and it really pains me to feel that way because I
named "Fellowship" as my best film of last year. Again, I feel I must
reiterate that I have never read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers
(or his third book in the trilogy, The Return of the King). I didn't
want to. I wanted to go into The Two Towers completely unspoiled with
no preconceptions about anything. I wanted to be taken on a journey just like
the first book had taken me when I was 13, just like the first film did when
I was 31.
How many of you recall my gushing, slobbering, over-the-top positive review
of "Fellowship" last year? You'll remember that I wrote that I "loved,
loved, loved this movie." In the subsequent print version that ran in the
Avenue Papers in Baltimore, I described it as a great, great, great, GREAT film.
Not exactly a Pulitzer-worthy insight, but I was still rather mush-mouthed after
being blown away by the film.
The best way I could describe my feelings on The Two Towers is that I
simply love the movie and that it is just a great film. I know, I know. I really
haven't told you much yet. Keep in mind, I want to keep this review as spoiler
free as possible, so I can't get too detailed on some of the things I found
a bit lacking in the film (and there is one spoiler nitpick in particular that
I simply cannot divulge here in this column). I also realize that, judging by
some of the early reviews I've read, I may be the ONLY person who feels the
way I do about The Two Towers. That's a byproduct of the third hour being
so fantastically action-packed and grand, that audiences are willing to forgive
all in retrospect. I gotta be me, though, so here goes.
The Two Towers falls into the trap of being a movie that is really a
two-hour set-up for a gargantuan, spectacular final third hour. Have you talked
to "Rings" fans in recent weeks? Have you heard what everyone is looking
most forward to? Yup! The climactic Battle of Helm's Deep, a battle royale between
300 or so elves and men against 10,000 urak-hai monster warriors bred by the
turncoat wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee) that takes up about a half
an hour of screen time. The sequence when it comes is everything you want it
to be. It is quite possibly the grandest spectacle ever realized on film, as
grand as the Burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind, the chariot race
in Ben Hur, the sinking of the Titanic in Titanic, and the D-Day
battle that opens Saving Private Ryan.
But grand spectacle and gargantuan action is not what made Fellowship of
the Ring such a perfect, enchanting, enrapturing experience for me personally.
It was the fact that it was the most intimate epic I had ever seen. "Fellowship"
was the beginning of a great and noble journey that delivered as many small
moments as it did big moments. In The Two Towers, there's just nothing
as exquisitely touching as Bilbo and Gandalf sharing a pipe or Merry and Pip
describing what Second Breakfast is. And there was not one wasted second of
screen time in "Fellowship." Every scene mattered, every scene had
resonance. And I never once was pulled out of the fantastical Middle Earth world
imagined by Tolkien and interpreted and realized by Jackson and his legion of
film technicians.
I fidgeted about a half-dozen times during The Two Towers. It is clear
the film is headed toward something momentous, something vast and large-scale
at its climax. But the build up took too long for this viewer. It didn't hold
me in its grip as "Fellowship" did. There are too many scenes of the
characters standing around, lamenting about the terrible army of urak-hai marching
their way. This is the opposite nitpick I had with Gangs of New York,
by the way. I wanted that film to be at least a half-hour longer to tell its
complete story. By contrast, a leaner, tighter Two Towers would have
made for a better film, with the current, three-hour version better welcome
as an extended-cut DVD to be viewed at home.
The nature of the story and the direction Jackson takes The Two Towers
in is one of an action film. So why not get to the action sooner? The problem,
of course, are the legions of Tolkien fans who want the best, most thorough
adaptation of the three books possible even though, to my understanding, the
book version does not have Helm's Deep as its climax, but rather as a passage
near the middle of the book.
My misgivings with the pace aside, The Two Towers is still an awesome,
wondrous, terrific motion picture experience that I will be seeing in a theater
again VERY soon. The emotional core of the film is still the journey of Frodo
Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Sam Gangee (Sean Astin, who has a couple
of speeches in this film that had me near tears) as they venture to Mordor alone
to try and destroy the Ring of Power in the very fires where it was forged.
This is apart from Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson), Legolas (Orlando Bloom),
and Gimli readying for the Helm's Deep conflict. And Frodo and Sam's travails
are VERY far apart from the adventure that Merry and Pip, who after escaping
from the orcs find themselves in a dark forest with walking, talking trees called
Ents.
In addition to Helm's Deep, the other new innovation in The Two Towers--the
one that will get most of the press in the coming weeks--is the computer-generated
character of Gollum, who you'll recall possessed the Ring for 500 years before
it called out to its master, the Dark Lord Sauron, then was picked up by Bilbo
Baggins (Ian Holm, who sadly is not anywhere in The Two Towers).
Gollum (voiced by Andy Serkis) is one of the most fully realized CGI
characters ever depicted on screen, an emaciated creature who was once a man.
Gollum is obsessed with taking back the Ring, which he calls "my precious."
But instead, he becomes a guide and uncertain ally to Frodo and Sam on their
way to Mount Doom.
As much as I marveled at the character, a part of me couldn't help but wish
Jackson had opted to go with a human actor in heavy makeup for the role. Look
at the job done on the orcs and the urak-hai. This is quite possibly the best
creature makeup ever put on film. I would love to have seen what the "Rings"
crew could have come up with if Gollum had been played by a flesh-and-blood
human being.The great allure of the "Rings" films to older sci-fi/fantasy
fans has been that they seem to be happening in real environments (mostly New
Zealand) with performers who are really there on set. As real as CGI Gollum
is, my 32 year-old brain still registers him as a special effect in scenes where
he has to interact with a lot of characters. And the final version is something
of a cross between the Crypt Keeper from Tales of the Crypt, Baby Herman
from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and the revolutionary leader from Total
Recall.
OK, OK. Enough with the criticisms! Some have said my expectations for the film
were too high. I assure you, they weren't. Others have pointed to my unfamiliarity
with Tolkien lore. That may be valid (Ian McKellan being resurrected
as Gandalf the White took a little getting used to). When you get right down
to it, criticizing Tolkien's work is like criticizing the Bible (actually, I've
always been a little miffed at the Gospels jumping ahead from Jesus as a baby
to Jesus as a 12-year-old in the temple to Jesus in his early 30s and beginning
his ministry. Hello! That's, like, two decades of no info!)
Throw all that out, and what still remains is a very sincere appreciation of
two back-to-back films of extremely high quality. There is just a ton of great
moments, performances, and sequences to appreciate in The Two Towers.
I loved the sound the rain made on the soldiers' armor prior to the battle's
beginning. I loved the first arrow fired, who fired it, and the eerie calm that
grips the masses in that split second when the first casualty falls. There is
a creepy swamp that Frodo and Sam happen upon that serves as the watery graveyard
of a battle long since fought. Then, there is this smaller skirmish about halfway
into the film between the good guys on horseback and orcs on these horse-like
dog creatures called Wargs that is quite frightening in its intensity.
Of the newcomers to the cast, I most enjoyed Bernard Hill as the good
King Theoden. Theoden is presented as a cerebral, thinking ruler who considers
his people first before rendering a decision. His daughter, played Miranda
Otto, is also a welcome addition as both an action babe and a more worthy
love interest to Aragorn than Liv Tyler in the first film. And any flick
with Brad Dourif doing his Brad Dourif thing is a keeper in my book.
Here, he brings the pathetic, scheming Grimli Wormtongue to glorious evil life.
OK, that's it for now. In the coming weeks, after the deluge of Oscar-season
movies have hit theaters (I have about 10 reviews coming in the next two to
three weeks, plus my annual Best 10 and Worst 10 lists), I may write a second
review of The Two Towers as I did for Attack of the Clones that
is a spoiler-filled one. I really do have a LOT more to say. While The Two
Towers was not the cherished, perfect cinematic experience "Fellowship"
was for me, there will still be a place for it on both my Top 10 list for the
year and my DVD shelf come 2003. I may not have FELT it as deeply as I felt
"Fellowship," but the experience was no less thrilling and awe-inspiring.
The Two Towers is rated PG-13 for epic battle sequences, violence,
and scary monsters.
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