A rollercoaster ride of excitement

Rating: 10/10 (5 January 2003)

Finally here comes a movie that is worth the price of admission and more, a movie that surpasses your wildest expectations and constantly fills your eyes with wonder, a movie that grabs you from the first frame, carries you off to another time and place, immerses you in an epic struggle of good versus evil and makes you give a darn about the outcome, a movie with characters who are real and are given poetry for dialog in place of profanity, a movie where we care about those characters, where we root for our heroes and curse their enemies. Finally here comes a movie that deserves the title "epic." Here comes Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Kneel down and pray.
I should say I am not a huge fan of Tolkien (though I enjoyed reading The Hobbit as a boy). I saw the first film and thought it was "okay," but this one -- this one made me a believer. The movie simply does not mess around. For one thing, you need not be a LOTR-geek to get caught up in the spectacle of the thing -- probably the best that modern special effects has to offer the movie-going public. A surreal, dream-like world is established, half-cartoon, half-flesh-and-blood; which is which is often hard to tell. Like any good magic show, at some point you just give in and enjoy the show.
The Two Towers astounds its audience with sweeping vistas, gargantuan armies, looming castle walls, dark forests, giant monsters, dragons, and all manner of fantastical creatures. And its real. I particularly enjoyed the way mythological creatures became real creatures before my eyes. We become familiar with the nature and limitations of dwarves and wizards, elves and orcs, and oh yes...hobbits. For example, when Gandalf the Grey throws off his robe, revealing that he has acquired new power and become Gandalf the "White," you feel like you are witnessing a real wizard. All of the creatures move and operate according to certain rules -- just like in any universe. But its not hokey, the way, say, an episode of Charmed might be with its "White Lighters" and "Demons." Here is a world where a master dwarf is, well, a master dwarf -- a creature with excellent fighting abilities, sure, but don't count on him to give chase to bad guys (since he can't run very fast or for very long). Nor can you expect him to be able to leap from a tiny ledge on the side of a castle, some ten feet across in order to attack a battalion of Uruk-Hai warriors gathered on the narrow entrance leading into the castle. He must be thrown across the way if he is to make it at all. Hey come on; after all, he's a dwarf!
The acting is so good that the characters are not being portrayed -- they simply are. The plot, though complex, never leaves us wondering. In fact, the plot is really quite simple: War is brewing. An evil force is gathering. Innocent lives are threatened. A final battle is promised and when it finally occurs, we are in awe. Ladders are slowly raised to storm castle walls, swarms of arrows impale snarling soldiers, and all of it looks magnificent. As clichÃ© as it sounds, the movie is a rollercoaster ride of excitement. Get in line and buy your ticket.