| The second installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy blows the first one completely out of the water. Although it does that, it also can give you a newly required appreciation of the first film (watching some of the first again, I noticed I enjoyed it more after seeing the second). If you thought the scenery and cinematography was spectacular in the first one (which it was), just wait until you experience the second. There is no way someone couldn�t appreciate it. It surpasses its predecessor in almost every aspect, especially the spectacle. �The Two Towers� begins with an awe-inspiring scene of Gandolf (Ian McKellen), the wizard falling from where we saw him fall and supposedly die in the first episode. As he is falling, the demon is falling right down with him, and a fight scene actually takes place as they proceed through the air. The film only begins with that. There are probably more than a hundred other great sights in store for you. The second �Lord of the Rings� begins right where the other left off. Sam (Sean Astin) and Frodo (Elijah Wood) are off on their own, trying to return the ring to Mount Doom. Gollum, a creature that has a lust for the ring, meets them there and tries to fight them to capture the ring. He does not capture it and ends up being endowed to Frodo as his guide to Mount Doom. The other part of the group has set off to the city of Rohan to help a king, Theoden (Bernard Hill) whom is most likely going to be attacked by a very large, and dangerous army of Saruman. The king is under a spell from�shall we say, the dark side of the force (sure, I admit it, it�s fun using a phrase from �Star Wars� in a review) until the wizard releases him from the spell. Now the king can think straight, and begins to side with Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Gimli the dwarf (John Rhys-Davies), and of course, the powerful wizard. The third story follows Pippin and Merry (Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan) as they wonder into the Fanghorn Forrest. This is a magical forest where trees talk. In it they meet the slow moving, and monotone talking tree, Treebeard. He and his friends are mighty allies and help them win a battle in the end of the film. The battles in the film are some of the best ever committed to the big screen. The ending battle might be the best ever committed. Imagine the epic battle sequence at the beginning of �Gladiator�, and then imagine a battle that is twice as grand. Your mind isn�t exaggerating. The scene is as spectacular as that. Peter Jackson was using new software to create these battle sequences. Every character that was created on the computer for the battle had its own mind; so therefore, the battle went in its own direction, with a general direction of the outcome by its creators. There are thousands of characters fighting, and it looks extremely realistic. As I said before, the cinematography will blow you away. Almost every shot is absolutely beautiful in some way. There are wonderful shots of the surrounding mountains, exquisite shots of the tremendous sets, and pans of armies of thousands marching from an interesting point of view. The makeup is flawless, and is just another part of our journey into the glorious world that Jackson (and Tolkien in the books) has created for us. The script is more involving than the last one, and more emotionally effective. We don�t find characters saying stupid things like �Gosh, that�s a darn big monster there� in the film. Some films, fantasies, for example, have characters that say lines of dialog that characters would never say in that time period. �The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers� dialog is crisp, and nicely put. However, this isn�t a perfect film. A couple scenes dragged on too long, and lost my interest, but that was probably for five or ten minutes out of three or so hours. The entire experience of the film as a whole made me forget to write that something was wrong with the film (I had to come back and add these sentences in), so that obviously is a big of a problem as putting a molecule of too much salt on a corn chip. The atmosphere created for us is so perfect, cryptic, mysterious, and convincing that I forgot I was sitting in a boring, old movie theatre, with a sticky floor under me from a spilled drink, being squashed by people left and right. For three hours you are transported into a dreamlike world that you don�t want to leave, even after the three hours is up. The ending of the film feels much more complete than the �Fellowship�s� did. The battle before it exhausts you enough that when things cool down, they feel like they should be cooling down, unlike the previous film. There is much talk by Christians that �The Lord of The Rings� series has many parallels to the Christ and the Christian religion and etc. To tell you the truth, I don�t see them being that evident. Yes, I remember saying in my review of the first film that this, and �Pilgrims Progress� are much alike (and now I am probably contradicting myself, after more thought). They are in that �Pilgrims Progress� is the story of a journey as is �Lord of the Rings�, but �Pilgrims Progress� gave names to all the characters that resembled something in the Christian walk like the blank of discouragement, the blablabla of doubt. The character�s name was Christian. And the people he met were types of sins people could be doing. If Lord of The Rings is an allegorical type of story, the meanings are hidden deeply. The �Lord of The Rings� is just a good, moral tale, containing no profanity, and no sexuality. The violence is there because it is a war of good against evil. I would recommend this film to Christians because it is a good film with nothing that is truly offensive, not because it �has a lot of parallels with the Christian walk�. I still feel like I didn�t laud enough about this wonderful film, but no one would want to read a review going on for forty more paragraphs, so I will conclude saying that this is no doubt the second best film I have seen this year, only being topped by the masterpiece, �Minority Report�. I�m breathless, and I have to wait a year for the next chapter in �The Rings�. If I don�t breath for that long, there�s no doubt I�ll be near death when the third installment comes out to totally and utterly revive me. |
| Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers |
| ****Stars |
| New Zealand/United States, 2002 U.S. Release Date: 12/18/02 (wide) Running Length: 2:59 MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Violence, mature themes) Cast: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Miranda Otto, Christopher Lee, Brad Dourif, Bernard Hill, Andy Serkis Director: Peter Jackson Producers: Peter Jackson, Barrie M. Osborne, Fran Walsh Screenplay: Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Stephen Sinclair & Peter Jackson, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien Cinematography: Andrew Lesnie Music: Howard Shore U.S. Distributor: New Line Cinema |