Hey folks, Harry here... Currently I'm overwhelmed by my reaction to TWO TOWERS - there's so much I want to say that I don't really have a clear starting point. My review will be a bit late, but that's because I just want to watch it again, because any and all critical faculties left my body upon watching the film. All I'm left with is to see this again... For now, I give you Mr Beaks' look...
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (d. Peter Jackson, w. Jackson, Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens)
It’s a transcendent moment in a film filled with them: Gollum, the twisted, erstwhile owner of the Ring, is at battle with himself. The last clinging vestiges of decency and sanity within this disturbed being are revolting against the dark-hearted creature he has become over too many years of tortured existence; the upheaval fomented by the compassion of Frodo Baggins, the current ring bearer who has recognized somewhere deep with Gollum a kindred spirit worth saving. That spirit is named Smeagol, and for the first time in hundreds of years he has been empowered to claim dominion of his now-decrepit body. Finally, after an anguished internal combat rendered with unbelievable emotional texture through the work of actor Andy Serkis and the geniuses at WETA, the rightful owner wins out. Gollum is banished; Smeagol is free.
So is Peter Jackson. Unburdened at last of the oft-crushing exposition of his otherwise wonderful FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, this brilliantly brazen bastard juggles multiple plot threads with astonishing ease while crafting a three-hour thrill ride that builds inexorably toward the much-anticipated battle of Helms Deep. Though the first installment was no slouch, THE TWO TOWERS is outfitted with some blessedly souped-up pacing. As Jackson plunges us back into Tolkien’s expansively fantastical universe via a dream sequence that recalls one of FELLOWSHIP’s most harrowing moments – while taking it one thrilling step further – the director is clearly announcing that the set-up is over. It’s time this tale got cookin’.
Which, narratively speaking, is easier said than executed, especially considering that Jackson and his co-writers, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, must manage four separate story arcs throughout the first leg of the film: the three splintered factions of the Fellowship and the drama unfolding in the mountainous region of Rohan, where its King Theoden (Bernard Hill) has fallen under a spell cast by Saruman (fantasy franchise MVP, Christopher Lee), who is aided in his treachery by the evil Wormtongue (the ever eccentric Brad Dourif). Though two of these threads are united once Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli arrive at Rohan to free Theoden from Saruman’s grasp, one still has to marvel at how effortlessly Jackson and his collaborators balance these, for now, divergent arcs, all of which sport wildly different dynamics.
The wisest decision made by Jackson in the first half of this picture is the way in which he almost instantly drops Gollum into the story. And, really, believe the pre-release hype: he’s the absolute star of this film. Pathetic, pitiable, and unbearably tragic, Gollum is a maniacally covetous monster whose pernicious intent is often masked by his painfully expressive eyes, which makes it easy for us to understand why Frodo, over Sam’s persistent protestations, fairly unquestionably takes him on as their guide to Mordor. And though he’s mostly trouble for the Hobbits, he’s wonderful company for the audience, earning almost immediate sympathy which pays off beautifully in his showstopping, schizophrenic soliloquy.
Gollum’s value to the story is even clearer in retrospect when one realizes how his entertaining screentime is used to offset the gradually building arc of Aragorn, who essentially serves as this installment’s protagonist. Upon reaching Rohan, and seeing the dire straits into which his fellow men and women have fallen, his transition from ranger to king begins to take on a real narrative heft, but there’s still some setting-up that needs tending to before it becomes engrossing enough to be the film’s focal point. The hand-off finally occurs as the citizens of Rohan flee the approaching army of Orcs. Here Jackson begins to more fully explore Aragorn’s sense of responsibility to his people, as well as the consequences of his bond with Arwen, which is further complicated as he warms to Eowyn (Miranda Otto), the tough but lovely daughter of Theoden. It’s after his moment of death and resurrection following the Warg battle that Aragorn emerges as a hero and leader to his people. Backed into a dark corner at Helms Deep, Aragorn becomes their sole flickering light of hope, but even though he’s newly emboldened to lead them into battle, his doubt and fear is quite palpable. And because he senses a grim end to their looming battle, our hope is diminished as well.
Tricky as these elements might be, they’re nothing compared to the challenge posed by the Ents. Long feared as the most potentially hokey characters in the transition from novel to film, the Ents – sentient trees known for walking and talking *very* slowly – are integrated seamlessly into the film, though they end up being represented almost solely by Treebeard, who rescues Merry and Pippin from a ravenous Orc. Visually, the sight of the Hobbits astride the moving Treebeard is probably WETA’s shakiest work on the film, but the John Rhys-Davies voicing of the character, along with the performances of Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan, put it over almost effortlessly. This is terribly important, because it’s the Ents plight that comprises the film’s most potent, practically central metaphor – Industry versus Nature – and it’s carried off intelligently and affectingly. The Ents dilemma is, at first, one of intervention, but when they realize Saruman’s path of destruction brutally extends into their world, claiming many of their fellow beings, they realize the cost of inaction. By driving this theme home, Jackson is tending to one of Tolkien’s most fervent concerns. One imagines that, despite the author’s likely misgivings over Jackson’s story alterations, he’d have been proud of this thematic fidelity.
That said, he almost certainly would’ve been knocked on his scholarly ass by the battle of Helms Deep. Shot mostly at night over the course of several months, Jackson’s staging of this massive battle has been compared to the best work of Kurosawa, and it is absolutely in their league. From the tragic pressing of young men into battle, to the false start caused by the arrival of the elves, to the accidental first shot, and on through to the unending flood of Orcs that slowly pummel their way into the stronghold, it’s a magnificent sequence of astounding physical scale and seamlessly applied CGI. There’s so much to take in that multiple viewings are an absolute must, if only to watch the whirling dervish that is Gimli, who literally throws himself into combat with a hearty zeal that strikes one as hysterically compensatory for his diminutive stature. Dropping Gimli into a throng of foes achieves the same effect as lobbing a grenade. He’s unstoppable.
Unfortunately, the film is not. Eventually, it draws to an agonizingly unresolved conclusion that will send many rabid viewers overseas to New Zealand in search of a rough assemblage of RETURN OF THE KING, but there’s so much to pick over in this far superior second installment that the wait seems far less torturous than last year’s. At the end of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, one felt things were just getting started; however, at the end of THE TWO TOWERS, there’s more than a tinge of melancholy as one senses the nearing of the end. I’ll happily prolong that eventuality for as long as I can.
Faithfully submitted,
Mr. Beaks
