Dec. 19, 2002 - 11:03 am
ah, the insane story of killing and destruction that is The Two Towers. what can i say? i mean you have to go see this one because it's obviously going to be a piece of film history. this is one of the biggest investments made into the fantasy genre in i don't know how many years (this trilogy). if you've read the book intently though, you'll defintely be more disappointed than when you watched the first film.
i guess Peter Jackson was thinking, well we'll pull them in with the first film...making it exactly like the book, and then we'll "change what we need to" to make the second one better. well, there are a lot of small-to-large changes in this story that don't really seem to improve upon the book that much. in some cases it actually makes you feel like something's been ruined.
anyway, if you don't know, i'll now explain what the movie is about. this is the second part of the story where Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli continue to search for Pippin and Merry and where Frodo and Sam begin to get close to Mordor. this is also the beginning of the war for Middle Earth. the first half of the war is in this film and the second half will be in The Return of The King. in this film, the people of Rohan (a culture reliant on the horse for battle) are forced to battle the Uruk-Hai of Saruman in a great battle at Helms Deep, their great fortress. some of the more interesting features of this story are the Ents, tree-like people who Pippin and Merry meet in Fangorn forest, and Gollum/Smeagol who was once the owner of the ring.
Gollum is probably the most life-like CGI character to date. they're getting better all the time, but he's the best so far. i would say even better than Yoda in Episode II. they get tons of closeups on Gollum and his skin and eyes look very realistic.
i like the more personal elements of this trilogy, therefore this is my least favorite of the 3 books. it has so much fighting in it, that less time is spent on the individual characters and their feelings and pursuits. i like the feel that the first book/movie has with all of the different changes of scenery, and the small group of 9 travellers. you get to know each one really well. this movie has two huge armies fighting each other and i just don't find it as exciting as seeing 9 people take on an army of orcs by themselves.
the acting in this film, special effects, cinematography, costume design, and all of that is just amazing. wonderful, wonderful stuff. if it weren't for the original/new flaws in the plot i probably would have given it a perfect 10/10 as i did for the first film. the basic fact here though is, to me, this film will never be as good as the original. it's just one that you have to accept as being part of the trilogy. you can't live without it now.