December 19, 2002

Movie Review: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

[Spoiler Warning: Plot and characters are discussed]

Like many other loyal followers of the Lord of the Rings fable, I couldn't possibly wait any longer than opening day to see how director Peter Jackson had brought the second part of the trilogy to life. I had purchased my tickets weeks in advance, and had foolishly expected to get a good seat by arriving 45 minutes before show time - with Bend, Oregon, being not exactly a pulsating metropolis and all. Needless to say though, I grossly underestimated the fervor of The True Followers of the Ring, many of them cloaked in Frodo and Legolas costumes, and ended up in the back of the line - and thus also in the back row of the theater.

Nonetheless, expectations were sky high, the stakes even higher. Would the second installment of the Tolkien trilogy be able to withstand the keen glare of the public and the fans - after the movie critics in their usual prodding sceptisism had professed it more of a glorified action film than a true-to-the-book sequel of the Hobbit tale?

I confess, even I am torn.

I thought Peter Jackson had accomplished the impossible with his first epic picture "The Fellowship of the Ring", bringing Middle Earth to life oh so gloriously, while preserving the mysticism of the tale and coaxing good, maybe even great performances out of his enormous cast.

But with "The Two Towers" he faced the new challenge of staying true to the storyline of the book, while at the same time avoiding to alienate the movie-goes who hadn't read the books and were expecting a much more gentle and light-hearted film.

In truth though, "The Two Towers" is a dark tale - dreary and hopeless, with gruesome monsters and incredible violence. Jackson clearly tried to shine some rays of light into that darkness by expanding on the tender, yet fated love story between Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen looking ruggedly beautiful) and Arwen (the simply stunning Liv Tyler), and building in jokes every chance he got.

While Merry and Pippin provided much of the comic relief in the first movie, this time it was the Dwarf Gimli's turn to be the generator of laughs. He's seen awkwardly trying to keep up running with the vastly more athletic Legolas and Aragorn, stumbling and grumbling along, or trying to peek over the tall walls of Helm's Deep into the battlefield, but simply being too short. His fierce and gruff personality is turned into a joke and, unfortunately for Jackson, it doesn't work - especially in the midst of hairraising battle. The lame dwarf-tossing joke from the first movie is most unfavorably repeated again too.

Critics have commented that the character depths of the members of the fellowship have turned out rather shallow this time around. Yet they seem to have forgotten that those characters have already been established in the first movie, and much of the screen time in the second movie rightfully had to go to introducing new figures such as Gollum, Treebeard, and the people of Rohan and Gondor. There is only so much you can do in the time allotted - and the movie is already almost 3 hours long.

Admirably, Jackson's decision to create most of the new characters via CGI has paid off. The creature Gollum, though entirely computer-generated (yet with a real actor as a stand-in), is so surprisingly convincing and utterly unforgettable as no real-life actor could have been. The animation for Treebeard and the Ents is equally superb, as are the fearsome Isengard wolves who carry the Uruk-Hai in their first assault on the people of Rohan.

Surprisingly too, Frodo's subtle succumbing to the evil force of the Ring and his transformation from the gentle, happy Hobbit youngster into a tense and at times vicious Frodo is masterfully done. After looking wide-eyed for most of the "Fellowship" movie, Elijah Wood shows for the first time a spark of real talent, leaving you questioning no more why he was cast for the role in the first place.

Aragorn clearly emerges as the definitive hero and central figure of the "Two Towers", and despite all the fancy sword play and almost super-human endurance he displays, I particularly appreciated that he preserved his integrity and loyalty towards Arwen - despite the Rohan princess Eowyn (Miranda Otto)falling in love with him. Their onscreen chemistry was weak anyhow, so that was probably all for the better.

Remarkably, upon entering the screen for the first time, Legolas (Orlando Bloom) drew loud squeaks of excitement from the female teenagers in the audience - I guess cementing poor Orlando's status as a new heartthrob. Beyond the pretty long hair and demonstrating amazing skill with the bow (and yes, even briefly on a snow/surf/skate board of some sorts), his character was pretty much on an even keel with the first movie though.

And I would have definitely liked to see Shadowfax, Gandalf's horse, portrayed as the powerful and mystic creature it is described as in the book, but I guess trying to inflict special effects on that horse could have gone awfully wrong.

New Zealand, being almost a stand-alone character in itself, dazzles again with enormous sweeping vistas and breathtaking beauty, and the movie will no doubt crank the wheel of tourism in that country quite a bit.

So all in all, the movie should be a smashing success, and it certainly broke new ground by showing that a sequel can be equally as ambitious as the original. It stayed true to the book as much as it could (although I really could have done without the dumb jokes - but then again I'm hoping they'll get thrown out in the Director's Cut DVD), and the (granted lengthy) portrayal of the epic battle scene at Helm's Deep was no doubt an unparralleled accomplishment in movie making.

And yet I left the theater with the nagging feeling that what I had just seen wasn't doing the second book quite the justice the "Fellowship" movie had done to the first. Maybe it was that my expectations were higher. Maybe I was numbed too much already, and despite all the grandios special effects, "The Two Towers" were only able to satisfy and amaze, rather than rattle my world.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was due to the dissapointing fact, that the movie left off at a point where the book never would have - excluding Frodo's most harrowing adventure and greatly diminishing the role of the actual quest in the context of the movie in favor of lavish battle scenes.

Knowing that I'll have to wait for the continuation for a whole year is despite all almost unbearable.