Nice on the eyes, hard on the Logic...

Rating: Null/10 (19 December 2002)

New Line Cinema's latest installment in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's `The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' is a very pretty thing to look at, mostly. Those who know me, or are just seeking out `Radical Purist' views on the differences between the books and the movies need to scroll down a bit because I promised myself I would start this review from the standpoint of the filmmaking it's self.
The boldness of Jackson and New Line in starting the film as they do, sans any prologue or synopsis of previous events, is admirable as the brilliant, glistening white mountains we are treated to demonstrating why these films have contributed almost as much to the tourist dollars flooding into New Zealand as into AOL/Time Warner's coffers, they being the owners of New Line.
We are treated to a greater understanding of the closeness between the Ring Bearer and his ever stalwart Gardener, which is a blessing and goes a long way to backing up the inkling we get of their friendship and mutual respect at the end of the previous installment. Alas though the comic relief is stripped for the most part from the characters of Merry and Pippin and bestowed instead upon Gimli and Legolas, but the good natured ribbing is preferable over the constant grousing, complaint and general mumbling that pass for Gimli's lines in most of the first half of the film.
There is a disjointedness in Jackson's employment of `Dream Sequences' which cause a general disorientation and I felt detracted from my ability to see where the story was going and what was actually happening. Was Arwen really leaving with her father, or was this some possible future.and how did it fit into the story or move the tale along? Not since Kubrick's `The Shining', when I saw the person in the Bear costume, was I left as perplexed as to what the director was trying to say, but then it came to me later as I saw how Jackson was treating the lovely Miranda Otto's character Eowen's adoration of Aragorn. (An adoration which has little or no merit however due to the omission of several events from the book.)
As in watching a Puppet Show, Gollum slowly became more real to me because of my desire to believe he was a person and not merely a computer generated character. The interaction between he and the Hobbits is done quite well and is believable in the end, due in no small part to the talents of Elijah Wood and Sean Astin.
This lushly photographed epic is spectacular on the eyes, and many of the performances deserve a great deal of praise, but at three hours it gets tremendously bogged down in the great battle the film leads up to, it offering nothing unique from moment to moment outside of the occasional stunt or special effect. Lots of fighting, lots of things getting their heads, arms and other things cut off or impaled. In the end I give it, as a movie on its own merits, 3 out of 5 stars for being confusing in its dream sequences and long and boring in its battles. (Something I've been known to say about Kurasawa's `Ran' as well.)
Many of the fans of Tolkien's masterwork have decried the changes made in the story between the book and the film. They ask why these changes needed to be made and what possessed Peter Jackson to make them.
The question they all really need to ask is why things were left out like The Paths of the Dead, Gandalf and Co. going to Orthanc to confront Saruman and the ending with Shelob. The answer you will inevitably get is that there wasn't enough time in the three hour time slot, but then the follow up question is "Then why did you add so much crap that had nothing to do with the story, like the cheesy dream sequences which were only there to encourage the audience to believe that there was a chance for a romance between Aragorn and Eowen, or Aragorn's near death experience...or Frodo revealing himself and the Ring to the Nazgul in Osgiliath, a place that Faramir would have as soon taken the Hobbits to as he would "...take this thing, if it lay by the highway...", something which the film infers quite the opposite sentiment of in the character's actions...
Truth to be told Mr. Jackson has, in his career, shown himself to be a master of action and gore. These are things which, in this film, were portrayed quite extensively at Helm's Deep...very extensively...in the extreme and to the detriment of the film, for the very length of the battle, the 4 months to film it and the incredible resources required to make what was shown could have been better spent actually telling the story instead of producing the only battle scene that I have personally ever struggled to stay awake through. I guess though that you cannot blame the man for sticking to that which he knows best...after all he DID win an award once for using the most fake blood in a movie scene in the film "Brain Dead". (A dubious award at best though for anyone who saw the theatrical rendition of Stephen King's "The Shining"...but I digress...)
Thankfully they cut Arwen out of Helm's Deep, but where in the world did they come up with the "Genesis Cave" for the Women and Children to hide in instead of going to Harrowdale? Was it that much more important for the understanding by the audience of the story to show Osgiliath instead of the stately valley of Rohan in which the muster of Rohirrim kept safe?
And what of the curious decision to banish Eomer? They had to create an entire scene for this travesty for the sole purpose of the simpleminded conversation between Rohirrum and the three travelers so that they could heighten fears of Merry and Pippin's demise! Oh what tangled webs we weave, indeed!!
It seems that Mr. Jackson, et al, have such a low opinion of the viewing audience that he thinks it is necessary to beat them over the head with the most obvious of cheap story telling tricks in order to make them understand that which Tolkien had no problem conveying with no devaluation of the Characters or Story. While he altered events and dialog apparently to make the concepts more accessible to those who have not read the books, he presumes that the audience will accept the quite obscure concept of the Elves `.going over the sea.' at face value, making no attempt to explain what this means or indeed where they are going and why. This is confusing to me because of all the things he glazed over this is potentially the most confusing, yet it remained free of the `dumbing down' that so many other things suffered throughout the motion picture.
In fact if you look at the thing as a whole it becomes immediately apparent that one thing led to another in the writing of this screenplay. Every little change made, ostensibly for the sake of making the story understandable to the audience which hasn't read the books, led to one, two or more changes in the story having to be made to compensate for the lack of logic or continuity caused...
It seems that when Mr. Jackson states that he is making these films in "the spirit" of Tolkien he means that it has Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits and not much else in the way of the story, which leads me to wonder why he didn't just write his own fantasy story to film? Because he was nobody in the industry and needed the "big name" to push the deal. Nobody would buy an epic fantasy story by a man who's previous credits had been cheap but enjoyable horror movies and torrid black comedy, but with Tolkien's name on the project it would fly. Alas the Name is the most that has remained, and even IT was forced to be removed from the title by the estate...and here, in this film, we see more examples of how Peter Jackson is creating personal wealth on the skeletal remains of the most beloved story of the past millennium with little regard for the integrity, logic or continuity which made the original story feel more like a historical epic then a mythology for England, while all the while claiming that he wanted the movies to feel like Historical works rather then Fantasy.
New Zealand should produce a coin in honor of their Cinematic Son, Peter Jackson, and it should have a face on each side...