The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Last year, fifty-two weeks to the day to be sure, Fiancé Peechykeen and I sat down at the local googolplex to see a film that very certainly could be awful, by all rights it should be. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I'd read half of the novel at that point, and unlike many of the drooling fanboys sitting beside it, I was not nearly as impressed, or enamored. I found the novel a rambling narrative filled with wandering and singing where very little actually happened. Here is where most reviewers would say something along the lines of having a change of heart. I didn't. I still regard Fellowship as the weakest novel in Tolkien's trilogy. The true problem of it? It takes so damned long to get started. Halfway through the book, NOTHING HAS HAPPENED! So, as I sat there, fiancé by my side, I pondered who would be right, the Tolkien detractors, arguing fervently against the film being made or hell, being necessary (and I always love that argument, that film was unnecessary, when has a film EVER been necessary, by their nature they're not, but filmmaking, I think, is) or the very same drooling fanboys who have now leaned so far forward, drooling, that they're showering the row ahead. So, after all this buildup, needless to say, I loved the film. It was beautiful and epic and small at the same time, showing us a human (or thereabouts) face on this grand story that wouldn't normally be so human. And it topped my list for best film of the year.

Fifty-two weeks later. A Wednesday again. And still-fiancé Peechykeen and I again sit in theater seats, pondering what we're about to see. This time, there's a whole new set of worries, could The Two Towers even begin to approach the greatness of its predecessor? Hell, would it live up to the book? (Once I watched the first film, I began to read the novels again, finding the second two books to be much less rambling than the first, ultimately more satisfying.)

So, let me keep this part brief. The three film series (third part The Return of the King to be released fifty-two weeks from now, and counting) concerns a ring of power fashioned by dark lord Sauron to rule Middle Earth. Years after he was dispatched, the ring comes into possession of first Hobbit Bilbo Baggins and then his nephew Frodo. Frodo is charged to take the ring and hide it, then with the help of several companions, to return it to the fires that helped create it, in the boiling magma of the volcano Mount Doom. There's a little more going on than just that, but that's the cliff's notes version.

The Two Towers begins just before the last film ended, a sweeping epic battle between Gandalf the Gray (Ian McKellen) and the flame and shadow demon Balrog. Then, we find our Fellowship still fragmented. Frodo and Sam (Elijah Wood and Sean Astin) are off on their own, beating a confused and circular path towards Mordor, joined by the ring's former keeper Gollum (Andy Serkis) who in fear of he that bears the ring, has offered to lead the Hobbits to their destiny. Merry and Pippin (Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd) are being dragged along by the Uruk-Hai, all fighting to eat them though Saruman the White (Christopher Lee) has demanded the safe delivery of the halflings. Then there's Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas the Elf (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli the Dwarf (John Rhys-Davies), tracking those very same Hobbits to retrieve them before harm comes. And these, with the absence of Sean Bean's Boromir, are the entire titular Fellowship of the first film. The Two Towers also gives us Theoden (Bernard Hill), King of Rohan who has both feet in death's door largely due to the poisoned counsel of Grima Wormtongue (Brad Doriff), his niece Eowyn (Miranda Otto), a strong woman struggling to make a difference in the patriarchal society and Boromir's brother Faramir (David Wenham) another high ranking individual from Gondor desperate to use the ring to save the world. And that's more or less where I'll leave the plot description.

So, let's take a moment to speak about Gollum. The words All CGI Character have sent chills down movie goer's spines (and not the good kinda chills) ever since George Lucas got the bright idea to create one for The Phantom Menace, and since my dislike for that film is well documented, I'll say no more about a certain Gungan named Jar Jar. So the thought of this film, perhaps the trilogy that will eclipse Star Wars for good, if it hasn't already, having a fully CGI character in it unnerved me. The problem lies, I think (and this is just a humble film geek's opinion) with having voice actors do the voices. When voice acting is cartoony, ultimately the character will be cartoony, which may be why Jar Jar bared a strong resemblance to Roger Rabbit. But the news came down from on high, a character actor was hired to "play" Gollum, physically and voice. Hmm. I will now issue a statement that I am not the first to put forth and I certainly will not be the last. There are movies that mark paradigm shifts in filmmaking, more so in special effects. The Jazz Singer was the first movie with synch sound, Cupid Angling was the first film in color, the first Cinemascope film was The Robe and then, you can jump forward to advances in special effects. Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Titanic, The Abyss, Terminator 2, all paradigm shifts that changed our perception of what special effects could do. So here's the statement: Gollum is the single greatest achievement in the history of special visual effects. It bares repeating but perhaps I'll just let you reread it. I'm not sure we'll be to the point for quite a while that you won't be able to tell a computer generated character from a real one, but Gollum does the unthinkable, he makes you forget he's 1s and 0s in a data stream. He makes you care. More than a special effect, though. Andy Serkis's face was mapped into this character, so Gollum has true expressions, the eyes, the wrinkles, the movement, everything rings real, I fully back New Line pushing Serkis for best supporting actor.

Now let's speak about the climactic battle at Helm's Deep, Middle Earth's greatest fortress, between the humans and the tens of thousands of orcs and goblins and Uruk-Hai at Saruman's command. The war lasts for nearly forty minutes and is every bit as exciting and intense as we've ever seen before, Gladiator, Braveheart, The Patriot, Glory, Saving Private Ryan coming to mind. What director Peter Jackson wisely does is take time to show the moments during war that aren't directly related to the battle, but are very influenced by it. We see the women and children, cowering in the darkness of the caves beneath the fortress, listening to the war waging outside. Despite the fact that we only really know the leaders of these various groups of men and elves fighting here, the fact that we have those faces at the helm.

The most interesting moments in the film, though, are the character moments. Theoden's transformation and subsequent grabbing of the bridal and leading into war has some of the most interesting turns in it. Arwen's (Liv Tyler) moments with her father Elrond (Hugo Weaving) in doubt over whether or not to leave Middle Earth with the elves or stay for Aragorn, her true love are wonderfully played, so well as to even make the most fervent detractors forget that they weren't in the book. Gollum's discussions with himself, or rather Smeagol and Gollum's talks are breathtakingly frightening and sad at the same time as you can see the inner torment here of a being who is trying very hard to be a better person despite over three hundred years of soul leaching from the one ring. Moments I will speak of in abstract so as not to reveal major surprises. Faramir's epiphany and true nature. Saruman and Wormtongue looking out over their army. Gandalf's proclamation that after three hundred human lifetimes, now he's pressed for time. I can rave on and on, for the heart of this film, as the one that proceeded it is grounded in the performances by a note perfect cast. Back when they were casting, Sean Connery's name was tossed around as Gandalf, and no one could think of a better person for the role, but he passed and Ian McKellan was hired, we were gun-shy and wary, but after two films and a third on the way, who can imagine a better Gandalf? Or Aragorn, or Frodo, Pippin, Merry, any of them. Peter Jackson, whose movies thus far have collectively grossed about a forth of the budget of this trilogy assembled the perfect cast and crew, wrote the nearly perfect script and, I'm positive, when we look back at the end of next year, we will see the masterpiece of perfection.

In the middle though, I do have a few gripes that aren't nearly substantial enough to pull this out of my top slot for the year. In the first film, and especially in the subsequent extended DVD edition, we get moments of quiet and calm, seeing these fully realized characters interact with each other. The Two Towers is the mid-section, dispensing with much of the character development of the first film and presumably the last as well and giving us a roller coaster middle. If you look at this as one long film, this isn't a problem, most films don't have much character development in the mid-section. That being said, there really isn't time here. The Two Towers book has spilled into the other two with the Uruk-Hai battle that began the novel being placed into The Fellowship of the Rings and Sam and Frodo's encounter with Shelob within the gates of Mordor pushed to the final film, and still we, like Gandalf, feel rushed. This is a film that screams for the extended treatment they gave the first one, if only to give us moments to catch our breath. And more with Theoden and Eowyn, please!

So, not perfect, but all movies can't be The Fellowship of the Ring. If this is the weakest link in the Lord of the Rings chain, then the series will supercede mere filmmaking and become a piece of world culture, perhaps the world's greatest fantasy novel becoming the world's greatest fantasy movie that, I think, long after the glitz of Star Wars has faded will still be entertaining people, a Wizard of Oz for the new age, for the next hundred years of filmmaking. Lord of the Rings, all three as one, will be the one film to rule them all.