Following on from 2001’s The Fellowship of the Ring, the second instalment of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy finds the
Fellowship disbanded. The plot follows what remains of the party in three
separate storylines which barely cross paths. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas set
about trying to find Merry and Pippen while killing as many Orcs as they can
along the way. The aforementioned Hobbits meanwhile end up in a strange forest
full of giant tree herders known as Ents and Frodo and his companion Sam head
on towards Mordor, determined to destroy the One Ring. It isn’t long though
before they are joined by another companion, Gollum, the former owner of the
ring, a creature torn apart by its power and hold over him.
Much like The Fellowship
I loved The Two Towers when I first
saw it but as my enjoyment of the first has diminished over time, the same can
be said for its sequel, only more so. In terms of how much I enjoy the trilogy,
this middle part is my least favourite, though not by much. This instalment
also has themes which stretch beyond the reach of Middle Earth such as
industrialisation and ecology. It also features a battle which lasts close to
forty minutes and is considered by many to be one of the greatest ever
committed to the big screen.
The Two Towers
links nicely with The Fellowship of the Ring in its establishing shots. Sweeping heli-cam shots of Middle Earth are
over dubbed with vital pieces of dialogue from the first film before we are
taken back to the moment in which the Wizard Gandalf the Grey fell. We then see
what happened to him next before once again joining up with the remainder of
the Fellowship. The film judges well the amount of time it spends with each
strand of the story although I’ve always preferred the Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas
thread over the others. The thread featuring Merry and Pippen is given slightly
less screen time than the other two and rightly so in my view. It isn’t quite
as interesting or integral to the film. That’s not to say that it isn’t important
as obviously all three strands weave together to create the overarching view of
Middle Earth in its time of crisis.
There are new characters here too. The most memorable is
Gollum (Andy Serkis) who first stalks and then helps Frodo and Sam on their way
to Mordor. Gollum became an instant hit back in 2002 and is still popular
today. His “my precious” quote is one of the most recognizable of recent years.
Unlike the first film which concentrated on the formation of the The Fellowship, The Two Towers focuses more on the
plight of men in Middle Earth. New characters include the King of Rohan
(Bernard Hill) and his nephew Eomer (Karl Urban). Eomer’s sister Eowyn (Miranda
Otto) also features, creating another love interest for Viggo Mortensen’s
Aragorn. The additional characters help add depth and life to the sparsely
populated Middle Earth and bring focus towards the human cost of the coming
war. Overall the acting is a little better than in the first film although the
problematic characters remain so. Orlando Bloom’s Legolas suffers from awful
dialogue which doesn’t aid his overly feminine portrayal of the Elf. Elijah
Wood is a little better in this chapter and Sean Austin manages to just about
hold his accent together. I always feel like giving him a free pass as his
accent isn’t the stereotypical ‘British’ accent which Americans so often employ
but it slips at points.
The standout acting performance belongs to Andy Serkis who
plays Golllum. His character was created by WETA Digital using a mixture of CGI
and motion capture. Mo-Cap is fairly common now but a decade a go, it was
cutting edge technology. Serkis plays Gollum’s dual personality incredibly well
and his physicality is extraordinary. It’s no wonder that he has been recast
for motion capture roles in films such as King
Kong, Tintin and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He has become the go
to guy where the art form is concerned. To create Gollum the WETA team began
work in 1998 and each frame featuring the character took four hours to render.
At 24 fps that’s a protracted amount of time but still nothing compared to the
forty-eight hours per frame to render the character of Tree Beard, the film’s
other great creation. The special effects have held up slightly better than its
predecessor’s but occasionally cracks show. Gollum for instance is a little
shiny but overall the effects are still very good.
Extensive CGI is used during the battle of Helms Deep, the
film’s centrepiece. The battle pits 10,000 Orcs against just a few hundred men
in the Rohan fortress of Helms Deep. On first viewing it is a sublimely
choreographed extended battle but now on my forth or fifth viewing it has lost
some of its wow factor. Even so the scale of the battle is unlike anything that
came before it and the effort it must have taken to have so many thousands of
CGI Orcs, men and Elves do battle is mind blowing. The Helms Deep sets are also
impressive as are the close-ups of the battle. As much as the CGI impresses, I
still prefer the shots where one is in the midst of the fight. Unfortunately
though the battle contains what is probably my least favourite scene in the
entire trilogy, as Legolas skates down a flight of steps on a shield. I think
it looks awful and is too reminiscent of our world. I think that editing wise
the film manages to show enough of the battle before switching back to another
storyline. It does this a couple of times as forty minutes of non-stop battle
would end up being quite dull.
As I mentioned in my opening the film also has several
themes which are pertinent to the real world. Saruman’s Isengard encroaches
into the neighbouring forest as its Orcs tear down trees to make way for war
industry. The character of Tree Beard is a kind of angry Greenpeace member and
notes that no one cares for the trees or the forest anymore. They are like
forgotten lands. For me this is a statement about our relationship with the
forest which we ourselves cut down to make way for settlement, industry and
farmland.
Overall The Two Towers
is a very good film but I find it less interesting and less entertaining than
the films either side of it. It brings some great characters into the fold and
manages to handle an ever increasing scope. It also looks great. The effects
still stand up well and New Zealand’s natural
beauty is once again stamped all over the screen. For me though the battle of
Helms Deep loses something upon multiple viewings and I prefer the quest like
nature of the story and the parts in which it takes its time. Even so, like the
other two films, it is a movie which I keep going back to time and time again
and although I wouldn’t say I love it, it is one of only a handful of films of
its length that I’ll happily watch over and over again.
8/10
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