This second act of a nine hour film is Monsterific!

Rating: Null/10 (2 January 2003)

Orcs, uruk-hai,oliphants, gollum, Treebeard, dragons the Two Towers is populated with a cavalcade of imaginative creations. Any film worth it's merit though must stand on the quality of it's characters and storyline, the second rings film does well to continue the narrative started in fellowship, but falls a bit short in pacing. The book on which the film is based is very dense containing no less than three seperate plot threads. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli come to the aid of Rohan in dire times, Merry and Pippin meet Treebeard in Fanghorn forest, and Frodo, Sam and Gollum continue their journy to Mordor. For the most part Peter Jackson cuts and pastes the story well. With so much to tell in three hours The Two Towers isn't quite as poetic as Fellowship and is much more action oriented. This is not a short coming by any means since the entire purpose of Fellowship was exposition and character devolpment. At this point we know all of the main characters, there is no reason to re-introduce them. As a second act of a nine hour film it's goal is get the piston's of the storyline to fire and get the engine going in the red. However in a few instances the editing is a little too rapid fire.(this will be remedied with the extended edition 30 scenes were cut.) The portion with Rohan is clearly the stand out. Saruman's genocide of the race of men is portrayed in a grim stand off with the desperate people of Rohan. The film makes it very clear what is at stake because of this I was able to empathize with the plight of Theoden and his people. At Helm's Deep we a shown children as young as 12 being forced into the service of the king. This is a nation of the verge of utter destruction the war is bleak and violent and not glamourized as in Micheal Bay's special effect commercials. Also during Helm's Deep we begin to see Aragorn as a leader.
The story of Sam and Frodo is brief in this installment but still effective. Their journy contains the film's most fascinating character Gollum. Gollum has been tortured with his desire for the ring for a very long time. He has a split personality Gollum is the evil, and smeagol the small part of him left over from the days when he used to be a hobbit. Gollum could have easily came off as an annoying character. Here though he is a wretched pitiful creature that is actually a sympathetic character. There is a scene in which he is captured and interigated and it very sad to watch Gollum struggle with his splintered mind. Merry and Pippin meet the ents a race of old humanoid trees that watch over the forest. Depending on your tolerance for fantasy you'll either like them or gag on their caricature. Treebeard is the main ent and he is a representation of the forest. This thread is the shortest and the least of the three presented. More time with this would have been beneficial since the storming of Isengard is a center peice at the end. The production values range from average to outstanding. Filming three films back to back clearly has left a mark on this trilogy. In some scenes the camera work seems to have been done on the fly. As with Fellowship there is still too much shaky cam. Sometimes I felt the camera shots weren't chosen for any artistic reason, but because it was all the unit was able to get under the strict schedule. The effects are again a grab bag of good and bad. The Two Towers in general is a more acomplished film than Fellowship in it's effects than the first. Although there are still a few bad blue screen shots here and there. The Two Towers is a fantasic epic with a few very minor problems that do not distract from the overall enjoyment of the film. This was by far the hardest book to translate to film of the three. 9/10