 |
| Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings adaptation continues with the second instalment, The Two Towers. It's quite a different movie from Fellowship of the Ring, jumping around as it does, between sets of characters and locations. This gives it an even more epic quality, showing the build-up to all-out war on Middle Earth, culminating in the giant battle at Helm's Deep. All in all, it's a great adventure, the characters are superb, as are the effects, particularly the CGI Gollum, which is brilliant. He creates far more interest in the scenes around Mordor than Frodo and Sam, neither of whose performances are exactly gripping. The Ents are quite well-realised, but would have looked better had they been the same size as the other trees of Fangorn Forest. Had they been that substantial-looking, their attack on Isengard would have been more impressive. There's more humour in part two, as well. Although some of it might be unintentional, like the cockney orcs that are running off with Merry and Pippin at the start. Gimli is used extensively for comic relief, though at times not all that effectively. There are a couple of niggles though. There are two sequences which aren't in the book, and which really add nothing to the story. Aragorn is dragged off a cliff by an orc's fiendish mount, is washed away. He then has to ride to Helm's Deep. Is this just so that we can see how much they all care about him, and give him a cool scene where he opens the big wooden doors? The other extraneous scene is when Frodo and Sam encounter Faramir, and he takes the two hobbits to Osgiliath before letting them get on with the quest. And this just lets him reach the conclusion that he reaches in the book after about 2 minutes. "By rights we shouldn't be here," says Sam. Too right, lad. Get on with it and get to Shelob's lair. And while Frodo is in Osgiliath he dangles the Ring in front of one of the Nazgul. Sam throws him out of the way, after which the Nazgul apparently forgets all about the Ring that his existence revolves around finding, and flies off. In exchange for these scenes, they nudged out Gandalf riding to Isengard for his showdown with Saruman, one of my favourite parts of the book. It would, after all, have given gandalf something a bit interesting to do after resurrection. Hopefully it will appear in Return Of The King. Jackson made an odd choice for the ending of the movie too. Sam's optimistic pep-talk has nowhere near as much impact as the book's cliff-hanger: Frodo apparently dead from giant spider bite, and Sam as the ring-bearer into Mordor. Now that had impact. Not least because you had to wait a whole half a novel to find out what happens. Like I said, absolutely top movie, though 10/10 |
| THE TWO TOWERS Director: Peter Jackson Screenplay: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh & Phillipa Boyens UK Release Date: 18/12/2002 Certificate: 12A |