Better than the Fellowship?

Rating: Null/10 (6 January 2003)

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was in my opinion was the film highlight of 2001. The Two Towers although a good film, is not as good as the first one. The first film opened up with a fantastic prologue, showing how the ring came into being, and the war of the ring. The second opens up with a scene as good if not better than than the first, of Gandalfs battle with the Balrog. Sam and Frodo's quest goes on, with stunning scenes overlooking Mordor and the Dead Marshes, when they are joined by Gollum. In this film WETA workshops outdid themselves with Gollum and Treebeard, the opinion of most is that these characters were better than anticipated, not alot of people realise how much effort WETA put into these films, as they create nearly everything you see on screen ( i.e armour, minatures, make-up etc). New scenes, that were not in the book have been added, which at the time seemed quite pointless, but for instance during the battle with the Wargs, Aragorn goes over the side of a cliff, leaving Legolas and Gimli to mourn, however of course, Aragorn does die, I didnt see the relevance of this, until I thought about how it shows the bond that these characters have made since they left Rivendell. In the Fellowship, Merry and Pippin were used to delivier the comic relief, however in this film they play the serious role of trying to get the Ents to attack Isengaurd, they are replaced by Gimli, whilst his jokes are funny at times, there are other occasions where his jokes are irrelevant and sometimes break the tension, that is often needed. The stunts in this film are quite remarkable, those of you who have seen it will know what I mean when I say the name Legolas, for the rest of you, you will know what I mean when you see it. While the film is great and amazing in places i.e Helms Deep, it does not delivier its emotions as well as the first, the love between Arwen and Aragorn although strong isn't deliviered as well, as quite a lot of the film is centered around their love, tension isn't delivered very well at all, with Gimli breaking most of it. And terror, in the first film the Nazgul are seen as being quite terrifying, but in this one their, almost comical looking winged beasts do not create the terror the Nazgul on horses did. However do not let my comments put you off, as it is an extremely good film, but doesnt quite live up to the first installment, don't let my comments make you be the only one to not see it.