The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

(2003, Dir.: Peter Jackson, with Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Sean Astin)

In the long run I suspect The Two Towers will play better as the middle act of one very long movie. As it is, the pacing seems at once choppy and relentlessly the same; the film never slows down enough to let you breathe in it. Thematically it doesn’t come together as well as Fellowship of the Ring, and I suspect that’s because the threads will be taken up in Return of the King. This series seems fairly unique to me as a story that basically had to be broken up into parts but really is one complete story, much more than, say, the Star Wars trilogy or the Red-White-Blue trilogy. Nevertheless it’s released as an independent film and gets to be judged accordingly, though with that caveat.

My only other real problems were that some of the dialogue made me wince more than happened in Fellowship, too treacly at times—don’t know if this is more Tolkien’s problem or the screenwriters’, but it did bug me more than I’d like, and the Gimli is a dwarf comic relief was overplayed. I mean, I get it, he’s short. It was funny from time to time, but sometimes it interrupted the mood of a scene in a very awkward manner, and it got to be a bit much.

On the other hand: This is a grand, grand, epic film. Sweeping, powerful, all of that. The visuals are fantastic, and the siege on Helm’s Deep is riveting. Any cast that has Ian McKellan and Christopher Lee in it is going to start at good and go up from there. Jackson creates a Middle Earth that feels very real, from Rivendell to Mordor, and keeps you there the whole way through, which is no mean feat.

8/10