Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Cast
Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins
Ian McKellen as Gandalf the White
Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn
Sean Astin as Samwise 'Sam' Gamgee
Billy Boyd as Peregrin 'Pippin' Took
Liv Tyler as Arwen
John Rhys-Davies as Gimli
Dominic Monaghan as Meriadoc 'Merry' Brandybuck
Christopher Lee as Saruman the White
Miranda Otto as �owyn
Brad Dourif as Gr�ma Wormtongue
Orlando Bloom as Legolas Greenleaf
Cate Blanchett as Galadriel
Karl Urban as �omer
Bernard Hill as Th�oden, King of Rohan
David Wenham as Faramir
Directed by Peter Jackson
Rater #2 has description and Review
Rater #1
8/10. What a fascinating movie this was. I personally think that this movie was much more easier to tolerate than the first one. Now, where shall I begin? I guess we shall start in the special effects department. Geeze, there were a lot of special effects. The thing that got me was all of the fighting. When the camera pulled back to watch the action from a distant view, a computer took over all of the little people that you saw. Obviously, they couldn't have thousands of people on hand to get killed or otherwise it would cost too much money. You could kind of tell that it was computer-generated because the characters seemed a little bland when you looked for them. I was watching the LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring DVD and they were explaining how everything worked. They design the characters and place them where they want them placed, and they just let it roll. The computer takes over and controls each and every warrior. Everything is random and they fight different people at random.
As I was watching, I knew there were things that they could have taken out to make the storyline less. I personally thought the scenes with Elrond and Arwen could have been taken out or at least some of them. The storyline with them seemed pointless to me because I didn't really care about what was happening to the elves back in their secret hiding place. I wanted to know what was going on in the battle and the such. Another thing they could have taken out were the scenes with Merry and Pippin. I was surprised when they pulled back from the battle and went to Merry and Pippin. The scenes before the Ents came to the meeting should have pulled. I liked it when the Ents did start attacking though. One last thing that I think they did wrong was not going to Frodo and Sam for about 30-45 minutes. I was really wondering what had happened to them.
The acting was good once again. Frodo seemed much darker in this movie. It seemed that because of the ring, he couldn't hold back from being mean. Gollum was pretty funny with his split personality. He added a much needed comic relief. Gimili was good at comic relief too. Everyone in the theather laughed when he said something. I was happy to know that Gandalf survived. Sorry, had to tell you. I liked that they told us what had happened to him.
All in all, this was a great movie and should be seen by all. Just make sure you go to the bathroom before hand.
Rater #2
5/10. Ho hum. In Peter Jackson's second movie of the three books, Frodo
Baggins (Elijah Wood) is trying to deliever the ring of power to the
fire in middle earth, since that is where it was created, that is
where it can be destroyed. Along with him is his friend Samwise (Sean
Astin), who refers to his friend as "Mr. Frodo". Something about that
strikes me as just weird. The other members of the broken fellowship
(how did they break up? I don't remember, I saw the first one a year
ago and I'm not an avid fan) seem to be trying to tag along. Aragorn
(Viggo Mortensen), a human, Legolas (Orlando Bloom), an elf, and
Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), a dwarf, try to trace the trail of Frodo
and Sam. Two more hobbits, Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Merry (Dominic
Monaghan) get lost and are aided by talking and walking trees (!).
Confused yet?
The one-minute-shy-of-three-hours runtime seems somewhat padded,
maybe so it can keep up its reputation. Jackson tried to stay
faithful to the book, but kept too close. For the record, I have not
read any of the books. If everything about Pippin and Merry had been
taken out, it would have been easier to tolerate.
To improve, they needed a more over-the-top climactic fight scene. In
the first one it was the mines of Morea (sp?). This time it's Helm's
Deep. With thousands of fighters, it's pure fun right? Wrong. It goes
on for way too long, and after a while, it becomes, dare I say,
boring? The first hour or so was fine, fun, and enjoyable. In the
second hour, when characters came in and out and Jackson expected us
to know everyone from the book, it drags a little. The third hour is
just pure chaos, with not real rhyme to the reason.
It also seemed like everyone who died came back to life. I know this
is a magical world, but come on! After falling off a cliff? Gimme a
break. All of the acting was fine (Astin's may have been best), but I
still don't know who a lot of the characters were.
Added to the mix is a computer animated character named Gollum, who
sounds (and looks) a lot like Dobby from Harry Potter and the Chamber
of Secrets. He was once a hobbit, but came under the spell of the
ring, and he's dying to get his hands on it. So he helps out Frodo
and Sam to get to where they need to go. Oh yeah, he also has split
personality for a bit of comic relief.
The cinematography seemed to either be long, wide, sweeping and
beautiful shots or grotesque close-ups of Gollum or rotted faces of
Orcs. Not exactly a pretty picture. The Two Towers doesn't have
anything to do with the title (unless, of course, it was mentioned
when I was in the bathroom). It's mainly a continuation of the first
film, a transition between numbers one and three. And what was with
Aragorn's dream type things? Maybe I should read the books.
The Two Towers is entertaining but deeply flawed by its meaningless
plot and boring fights. Its visuals are stunning, but little else in
the movie is.
Rater #3
20/10. AWESOME! (Remember this is the LOTR obsessed rater!) There was alot of awesome battling scenes, imgaine how hard they had to train! Gollum was incredible! The best animated/digital character I have ever seen! He had a great personality and added some comedy into the movie. Surprisingly, so did Gimli. The only kind of odd part of this movie was the whole Arwen thing. It was cool in the sense that it gave Aragorn courage, but they could have left it out. Oh yeah, and they should have stayed true to the ending of the book. I liked it alot better, but producers will be producers. Treebeard was very cool, and a fact for the curious, the voice of Treebeard was John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) Frodo was alot darker in this movie, the ring is starting to corrupt him :-( It was like, a whole other side to the Frodo we know. It was kinda cool and kinda creepy. Okay, gonna make this review shorter than my Fellowship one, so I better wrap it up, This movie was very good, and you have to be willing to sit through 3 hours, but it is totally worth it. Go see it!!!
Rater #4
9/10 Awesome movie. There was a lot more action in this movie than the previous one, which i liked. There was also some humor inserted, mostly coming from Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) that made some parts less dark and hopeless. The best part in my opinion was the hour-long battle scene where the Uruk-Hai attacked Helms Deep. Again they messed up on which female actors should have been chosen to play what role though (Eowyn should've been played by Natalie Portman). But I guess this was compensated for by the few laughs and the good action this time. The ending was less depressing and less of a cliff-hanger than the last installment (not that that was bad, because the book was written that way). The ending seemed more complete also because the Battle for Helms Deep was won by the good side and the Ents destroyed Isengard. Next, it's on to Mordor in the ultimate battle of Good vs. Evil. The next movie should be really good because Sauron is obliterated, there's going to be a huge battle, and good prevails. I'm also hoping there won't be a huge mistake again and that we see Natalie Portman in the final installment.
Guest Reviews: 2
This movie has been given a 10.50/10 by all 4 raters, but if you throw out Rater #3's rating, then it's a 7/10.
Rated PG-13 for epic battle sequences and scary images.
Running time: 179 minutes
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