The eye-opening
thing about watching The Lord of the Rings with other
people is discovering just how small the fanboy world is in
comparison to the real one. Not everybody knows what's coming
next, and worse, that guy next to you? He actually needs
subtitles in order to understand what the elves are saying.
So for
those who have only the movies as their experience with Middle
Earth, the second installment may not have quite as much magical
power as the first film did. Though Peter Jackson and company
strive mightily, this is a movie stuck between two towering
films. The Fellowship of the
Rings promised high adventure. Next year's The
Return of the King holds a satisfying conclusion. And
somewhere in between lies The Two Towers.
Though
it faithfully captures the essence of Tolkien's plotting,
on screen some of that plot starts to feel a little padded.
Elves keep threatening to leave for the Far West. Men argue
whether or not to make a stand against Saruman and his Uruk-hai.
In their quest to destroy The One Ring, our heroes Frodo and
Sam seem to make more side trips than Billy Keane coming straight
home from school. And yet for some of us, this movie still
rocks.
If I
seem to be playing both sides against the middle, it's because
I still can't quite make up my mind. Parts of this movie dragged,
but will probably still stand up well when seen in the overall
context of the Super Tiger Dragon Edition of the complete
trilogy. On its own, the film juggles a difficult split narrative
without completely losing us.
It opens
with an unfamiliar angle on a familiar scene. While the camera
pulls back over a spectacular snowy mountain range, the sounds
of battle can be heard coming from within it. These are the
fabled Mines of Moria, and once again we relive the supposed
death of Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen) at the claws of the Balrog.
Except, like a classic movie serial, we didn't really see
everything the first time around.
Frodo
(Elijah Wood) wakes from this dream/memory, to find Middle
Earth an even colder place than it had been in The Fellowship
of the Ring. At least he still has his Sam (Sean Astin),
plodding and faithful as ever.
While
we await the rebirth of Gandalf, Saruman (Christopher Lee)
builds his army and loses another piece of his sanity. It's
hard to keep it all together when busy allying yourself with
a huge glowing eye, possessing the Rohan King Theoden (Bernard
Hill), and trying to keep your whites white while being subsumed
in evil.
As for
the rest of The Fellowship, they're busy chasing orcs and
Uruk-hai across the lands of Rohan. Somewhere in their travels
they've settled into roles they didn't quite seem to have
in the first film. Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) remains stoically
heroic, but now seems more aware of his heartthrob status
(or director Peter Jackson is - a slow motion shot of Aragorn
throwing open the Helm's Deep doors is strictly a little something
for the ladies). Legolas (Orlando Bloom) has grown more cynical.
Shemp, er, Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) becomes nothing more than
comic relief, all bluster and vaguely Scottish accent. One
would have thought that Dwarves somehow walked taller than
this.
Walking
tallest of all is the ent Treebeard, also played by Rhys-Davies.
By luck, this strange creature becomes the new protector of
errant hobbits Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy
Boyd) after they stumble into Fangorn Forest. The oldest living
creature in Middle Earth, Treebeard stands for one of Tolkien's
chief themes, a not so passive ecological concern. To the
special effects house WETA's credit, Treebeard also comes
off as one of the most charming characters in the film, as
well as the most believably non-human.
Stalking
Frodo and Sam, the pitiful near-human Gollum also comes to
life through WETA and actor Andy Serkis. With a voice choked
off by centuries of self-absorption and ring addiction, and
wide expressive eyes only slightly unnaturally larger than
Elijah Wood's, Gollum has the only thing coming close to a
character arc in the film. Serkis plays the creature as fighting
between good and evil within himself, and with voicework alone
provides the creepiest and most sympathetic moments in the
film.
The other
characters don't really have the luxury of debating good and
evil. Just as Tolkien intended, those internal battles have
already been sorted out. The lines are clear and drawn, and
the unabashed black-and-white nature of the material may turn
some people off outright.
But Jackson
never falls off the edge into hokiness. The Two Towers
is earnest filmmaking, with a complete lack of cynicism. Yes,
he dawdles a little bit over the romance between Arwyn (Liv
Tyler) and Aragorn, and the film could possibly have tightened
up a few minutes without it. But let George Lucas take note:
if you must have romance in an action epic, this is the way
to do it. There's a difference between sincere acting and
flat line-reading.
Of course,
it doesn't hurt that Jackson has assembled some fine actors.
Aside from McKellen and Serkis, he brings in the quirky and
underrated Brad Dourif as Grima Wormtongue, a quietly lustful
servant of Saruman. Few play baleful as well as Dourif, and
his presence is welcome. Just don't question why no one in
Rohan suspects a royal advisor named Wormtongue.
A few
plot points remain muddled, even though on the whole Jackson
crams a lot of action into the film. A key matter of Gondorian
law is enough to give Faramir (David Wenham), brother of Boromir,
a crisis of conscience, but not enough to actually be explained.
Just who the humans who side with Saruman are, and why they
hate the horsemen of Rohan so much is also never really made
clear. (Those who side with Sauron, on the other hand, come
from The East, and perhaps unfortunately look very Arabian.
Though it will be a tempest in a teapot, I give it a week
before this movie starts garnering protests.)
But even
wading through all this arcane Tolkien lore, such a movie
stands or falls on its action, and The Two Towers has
plenty of it. At its heart lies the Battle of Helm's Deep,
a near echo of Masada in its feasibility, with the advantage
of a good old-fashioned U.S. Calvary film thrown in. Wave
after wave of Saruman's armies (by his count, ten thousand
inhuman warriors) lay siege to the last stand of Rohan, and
we never lose sight of what's happening. It's ugly, it's chaotic,
and never less than cool, especially the strangely thrilling
sight of Aragorn and Theoden making a charge on horseback
through the castle halls.
As a
bridge between beginning and end, The Two Towers holds
steady. But what I really want for Christmas is to see the
whole thing.
