Lord of the Rings:The Two Towers

December 11, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 179 min Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I went into last years “Fellowship of the Ring” with great skepticism and not much in the way of expectations. I walked out stunned and elated beyond my wildest dreams. This time around, I was a year wiser and went in to see “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” with *very* high expectations. Does it deliver the goods? More or less.

Thankfully, the pace of this latest installment of Tolkien’s masterwork is quicker than the first; especially so in the final hour. As with The Fellowship of the Ring, the cinematography and special effects are phenomenal as is the acting done by the primary characters. Viggo Mortensen is especially good this time as the man-who-should-be-king.

The tone of The Two Towers is quite a bit darker and appropriately so given the darkness from Mordor and Orthanc that is overtaking the land of men. The Evil (capital ‘E’) forces have gotten a head start and the heroes are desperately trying to buy enough time for the quest to destroy the one ring to succeed. Too much darkness, however, can be suffocating so Gimli is there to provide some much needed levity in the appropriate places.

As you (hopefully) remember from the end of the first movie, the fellowship was broken into three groups. Merry & Pippin were kidnapped by Saruman’s Uruk-Hai warriors while Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas banded together to pursue mount a rescue. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam headed off alone to destroy the ring in Mordor.

As the story unfolds, faithful fans of the story will notice more and larger deviations from book. I was particularly displeased with some of the changes and the movie gains nothing from them, really. In fairness, however, the movie doesn’t really suffer from them either. More egregiously, however, some parts of the story were left out or only lightly skimmed over. Much of this is needed to fill in the questions about motivation and plausibility. Hopefully an extended DVD version will address these omissions.

That being said, there is a lot to love here both big and small. The battle scenes are as majestic and terrible as anything I’ve ever seen on screen before. Likewise, the pitiful creature that is Gollum was portrayed amazingly well. I actually forgot I was looking at a CGI creation in a couple of scenes.

As the middle installment of The Lord of the Rings, I am certainly pleased with the result here. But not quite so pleased as I was after seeing the first chapter. I give this one a full 5 star rating…but just barely.

Lord of the Rings:The Two Towers