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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
directed by Peter Jackson

This is the second movie in Peter Jackson's movie version of Tolkien's book, The Lord of the Rings and immediately follows on events covered in the previous movie, The Fellowship of the Ring.

While generally engrossing with amazing effects and battle-scenes, it suffers from being the middle movie in the series (hence, it does not have a proper beginning or ending) and having battle scenes that, while being good in execution, tend to obscure the other aspects of the story.

The movie starts with a dramatic opening: the battle between Gandalf and the Balrog in the Mines of Moria, this time following Gandalf as he plunges with the Balrog deep into the heart of the Misty Mountains. The movie then cuts to each part of the now broken fellowship: Frodo and Sam's journey out of a maze of mountains to reach the Black Gate of Mordor, Merry and Pippin's journey after being captured by Saruman's orcs and uruk-hai and Aragon, Legolas and Gimli's pursuit of the orcs.

Additional characters are introduced in the movie, the major one being Gollum who looks very remarkable for a computer-generated character layered on top of a real actor (Andy Serkis). He is captured by Frodo and Sam and made to lead them to Mordor. Aragon, Legolas and Gimli meet the riders of Rohan, along with Eomer, her sister, Eowyn and their king, Theoden and feature with them in the major battle scene of the movie, the Battle of Helm's Deep. Pippin and Merry get to meet the Ent, Treebeard, who is a shepard of trees and tries to convince him to wage war on Saruman at Isengard. And Gandalf is reintroduced, now as Gandalf the White after his huge battle with the Balrog.

The movie is generally faithful to the book while adding its own elements to emphasise on items that are only hinted at or described at great length in the book. The power of the One Ring is growing and is shown as something that is constantly on Frodo's mind. Frodo's pity of Gollum gets more emphasis when you realise that he may be seeing what he could become if he becomes enslaved by the ring.

Aragon, Legolas and Gimli's interactions with the riders of Rohan has been expanded and modified to added more tension between the three and the riders. Eowyn is shown to admire Aragon and possible have feelings for him; feelings that Aragon may not be able to return due to his love for Arwen, the elf-maiden who, it is hinted in the movie, may now be lost to him forever.

Faramir, the brother of Boromir, is now shown to be more forceful and somewhat less noble than in the book, actually forcing Frodo and Sam to following him back to Osgiliath after capturing them. It would require an unusual event to convince him that the Ring is better off destroyed, rather than used as a weapon against the Enemy.

The ending of the movie does not match the way this part in the book ends. This is probably to ensure the movie does end on a climax of sort with a victory at Helm's Deep, Isengard destroyed by the Ents and Frodo continuing his journey with a hint of malice from Gollum who plots to lure Frodo to 'her' and use 'her' to get the ring back from Frodo.

The character of Gollum is well done, especially in the middle when Smeagol begins to reassert himself and try to get rid of Gollum. But it requires what he/they consider a treacherous act by Frodo to cause a change in Smeago/Gollum for the worse. As the film progresses, you forget that Gollum is a computer-generated character and see him as just another character.

Probably the major problem with the movie is that, as it is in the middle of the story, it has to introduce some characters who really only take centre-stage in the third movie, The Return of the King. This cannot be helped as that is how they appear in the book but this may cause some people to wonder what some of the characters are doing in the story. Some situations too, like the destruction of Isengard, are introduced here but are only resolved in the third movie, leaving people to wonder why the resolution was left hanging at the end of this movie.

Overall, The Two Towers is a pretty good movie but not quite as good as The Fellowship of the Ring. Possibly the best time to see it is as an introduction to The Return of the King as that movie will resolve some situations introduced in this movie as well as acting as a climax to the entire series.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers directed by Peter Jackson

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
directed by Peter Jackson