"Stupid, fat hobbit."

Rating: 7/10 (13 February 2005)

I may be committing cinema heresy here, but I have complaints about the second Lord of the Rings film, The Two Towers. Number One: It is excessively long. I know the books that the movie is based on is really really long, and for a book, that's a good thing. When someone is reading a good book, they never want to put it down, they want to be with Frodo and Sam forever as they dodge ring raiders and enter Mordor, the home of Mt. Doom where the ring must finally end up. However, for a movie, it's tough to sit through a 3 hour plus movie, especially one that consists of nearly one hour of fighting between the good guys and the bad guys. What I personally find fascinating with the Lord of the Rings, the mythology of the ring and how the different characters are allowed to act within the rules of the Middle Earth universe, is there, but is pushed aside in favor of a dark, muddy fight. That leads to Complaint Number Two: There are too many characters for non-die hards to keep track of. Perhaps these two complaints come from the fact that my attention span is not as good as it used to be. Now the good: Gollum makes Jar-Jar Binks looks like a Simpsons' cartoon character. The combination of stop-action and CGI animation, Gollum the whithered hobbit looks totally believable and is the most interesting character in the saga, I think. What happened to him? Will the same thing happen to Frodo? These are questions I had that were spurred on by watching the Two Towers. The walking, talking trees are also a triumph in technology, something like this could not happen just a few years ago. The Empire Strikes Back is the best of the 3 Star Wars films, I think The Two Towers is the weakest of the Lord of the Rings films, so there is no definitive word on whether the middle chapter of trilogy suffers or gains compared to the surrounding chapters. It is not a bad film, again it looks great, has interesting characters, but I just wish some fat was trimmed off the film. I know die-hards would have a fit, but the length does keep some casual movie go-ers away, and there is plenty, especially in the end fight scene, to be taken away. But Peter Jackson has a houseful of Oscars, and I don't, so what do I know?