We've all sucked spinning steel once more... (spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 2002)

...and will continue to do so throughout the course of movie history. Yes, I've said it before and I'll say it again. Peter Jackson is a genius. I was as much in love with Kate Winslet in "Heavenly Creatures" as Melanie Lynskey was. I fought my way through legions of Kiwi zombies in "Braindead". I saw the lamest show on Earth in "Meet the Feebles". I went bananas with Derek in "Bad Taste". I accepted the daunting task of taking the Ring to Mordor with Frodo. And now, I have partaken in the struggle that will save or doom Middle-earth. Nothing in this world can prepare you for the cinematographic orgasm that is "The Two Towers". In many fantasy/adventure films, you never really get to see the gravity of the situation. When a planet is saved, you're like... "yay, but you know, what else is gonna happen?" In this film, you really have the sensation that the heroes might not make it. They're fearful and doubting, yet you know that what they are doing is right. You know that they are heroes. What they do, what they embark upon, makes them heroes.
"Maybe this is all just way too big for us, Merry. Maybe we should do what he says and head back to the Shire. We're just little people after all."
But Merry and Pippin persevere. Just like Frodo, Sam, Aragorn and the rest. Even Sméagol does. Perhaps the most tragic thing of the film (and the entire saga) is that Sméagol is the only one who fails. His conflict is the most internal, less showy one of all three, but this is the one that is also the most poignant of all the storylines in the film. What happens when you're caught up in something as massive as the War of the Ring, but you're really not evil, just weak? In the final restaurant sequence in Pulp Fiction, Julius says to Honey Bunny something to the extent of how he thought he was the good man and Honey Bunny was the evil man, but now he realises that he is the "tyranny of evil men" and Honey Bunny is the weak man. Well, in The Fellowship of the Ring, we thought of Gollum as some sort of Hannibal Lecter, killing everyone who will get in between him and his precious. But in The Two Towers, we see he's really just Spud from Trainspotting. A lovable dope, trying to get some smack. It's the evils of this world that have turned Sméagol into his malevolent alter ego Gollum, and it's the evils of this world that keep him alive. The monologue/dialogue scene between Gollum and Sméagol might be one of the most powerful moments in film I have ever seen, together with Tarantino's "Madonna speech" and Yoda's "Do-or-do-not-there-is-no-try" thing. Oh yes, and did I mention Helm's Deep is an engrossing battle sequence, Brad Dourif was a slimy little c***sucker as Grima Wormtongue (bravo Chucky) and Sam's speech at the end is absolutely epic? Haven't I? Then find out for yourself by paying a measly 7 bucks for Peter Jackson's masterpiece at your local cinema.