Epic

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2002)

The Two Towers presents a worthy successor to last years The Fellowship of the Ring. I eschew the word sequel as it is not truly a sequel but a second installment in a continuous story that has been divided into three parts. I am hesitant to pass complete judgment until all three films have been released as it will only be then that we will be able to see the story totally unfolded and then that we will be able to see exactly how Peter Jackson has constructed the story as a whole. After the first two parts, however, it seems as though the story is in good hands.

This film presents a sound plot driven action epic. It is shorter on the character development than the first installment and throws a couple new characters at us with little time to get to know them, however, considering the circumstances in which the characters find themselves it does not feel like a disservice. The actors all do an admirable job inhabiting larger than life figures. Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood, and Ian McKellan especially invest their characters, the three who stand above all others with a sense of the grandeur of the goodness that drives these men. Special mention must also go to Andy Serkis for breathing remarkable life into the animated creation of Gollum, perhaps the most interesting character in the entire film.
The true star, however, is Peter Jackson who brings together a gigantic epic with a touch that is pitch perfect. He has done an impressive job of bringing to life a fantasy world and making it not only look beautiful and marvelous but feel real and inhabited. The massive battle at Helm's Deep is a remarkable feat of movie making and is without a doubt the greatest battle scene of its kind ever committed to film. What is perhaps most impressive about Jackson's achievement, however, is the manner in which he moves effortlessly between the epic scope of the battle sequences and the more intimate journeys followed by the pairs of hobbits.
Jackson weaves together three story lines and brings us three hours closer to the conclusion and does it all in epic fashion.