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Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
***1/2
Cinema
Releases - December 20, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12A. USA/New
Zealand. 179 minutes. Directed by Peter Jackson. Written by Phillipa Boyens,
Peter Jackson, Stephen Sinclair, Fran Walsh; based on the novel by J.R.R.
Tolkien. Starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin,
Billy Boyd, Liv Tyler, John Rhys-Davies, Dominic Monaghan, Christopher Lee,
Miranda Otto, Brad Dourif, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, Bernard Hill; with
the voice of Andy Serkis.
So I'm looking over notes scribbled down in
preparation for this review, and I find that four of my five key points are
negative. Why? I loved the movie. I also know that if I do not go into hyperbole
overdrive, and claim this to be the greatest visionary achievement of all
time, and give it five stars out of four, it will be perceived that I am
damning the film with faint praise. Because I am consciously not going to
pretend the film is better than it is, the flaws of the piece are standing
out more than the achievements.
The fans have gone nuts over Peter Jackson's
adaptations of the "Lord of the Rings" books, and to be fair, I can see where
they're coming from. Every shot towers in perfect composition and magical
glow. The vistas of the New Zealand shooting locations -- the vast grassy
hills and the awesome snow-capped mountains -- are seen by a camera that
loves swooping around them, making us feel socked in the gut and a little
short of breath. The story is an epic one, with good and evil fighting each
other through massive battles, portentous declarations and characters of
detailed history. The very undertaking of a trilogy of complex three-hour
fantasy battle epics makes film lovers mentally salute. This is stuff that
screams classical perfection; there's a temptation to refuse to believe that
it could be anything but.
Because I am in the minority that can see how
these movies are not perfect, it's natural for me to get defensive before
being bashed over the head. And this is a pity. It might be nice to enjoy
"Lord of the Rings" without having to apologise for not enjoying it more.
Having never read J.R.R. Tolkien's novels, I feel a sense of pride in just
being able to wade through all the weird nouns, unfamiliar places and convoluted
relationships, and figure out that we're in Middle Earth, where the One Ring
to Rule Them All must be destroyed by Frodo and Sam, two little creatures
of the Hobbit variety, who want to stop power from getting into the hands
of an evil wizard called Saruman. This stuff ain't easy. There's a lot of
detail to it -- and you're reading the words of a guy who was raised on
"Dangermouse" but only knows the name Penfold because it keeps appearing
on quiz shows.
"Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers",
the second instalment in the trilogy, follows Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam
(Sean Astin) on their continuing journey to Mordor, the only place in which
the powerful ring can be destroyed. These guys are accompanied by a small,
withered creature called Gollum (voice of Andy Serkis), who may be friend
or foe, and is not sure himself. He used to be a good Hobbit, but now stands
as a deformed wreck -- having once possessed the ring, he has become physically
and mentally twisted by its corrupting power.
Meanwhile, the folks who were separated from Frodo
and Sam in "The Fellowship of the Ring" are busy with their own issues.
Characters such as human action hero Aragon (Viggo Mortensen), great wizard
Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and famous elf Legolas Greenleaf (Orlando Bloom) make
it their duty to rescue King Theoden (Bernard Hill) from the grip of dark
forces. And then it's time to secure the fort of Isengard for the film's
climactic battle, where Saruman (Christopher Lee) commands a force of ten
thousand hideously brutish creatures called Orcs and leads them to attack
the castle of the good guys.
The details I have included are the perceptible
parts of many more masses of plot details, which rely a great deal on being
able to remember strange names like Smeagol, Grima, Gimlin, Faramir and Wormen.
Every moment, place and character seem to be essential, and it is rare that
Jackson stops to remind us of their histories or significances, even if casual
dialogue from his last movie suddenly becomes vital in this one. We're supposed
to know exactly who knows who and why, and all the hands in which the goddamn
ring has been, and yada yada yada. Luckily I was sat beside a Tolkien devotee
named Naomi Bulteel, who helpfully explained why Theoden was needed, and
why Gollum was laying claim to the ring, and a helluva lot of other
stuff.
It doesn't help that the characters are always
talking in Olde Classic lines like, "Alas, as the sun rises, blood hast been
spilled here this night!" This is a lot of work for what essentially boils
down to a tale of little warriors protecting their homelands by rising up
against big and powerful sorcerers. On the war of snobbery that "Lord of
the Rings" fanatics have declared on "Harry Potter" fans, I will say this:
Maybe they're right, and Potter is silly, and pays the audience off too easily,
and will soon seem laughably dated. But at least it has a giddy sense of
fun. "Lord of the Rings" is like having Bible text read at us backwards by
swashbucklers, knights and Muppets. I react to it with amazement, but not
with affection.
Watching "The Two Towers", almost every shred
of my energy went into trying to keep up with what was going on. Jackson
has remodelled Tolkien's episodic structures into visual set-ups and payoffs,
but he has not found a way to simplify the particulars of the material and,
you know, communicate. When we do manage to penetrate the layers, there is
depth to be found: Consider Arwen, the elf who falls in love with Aragon
and must make a choice between love and immortality. It's not only an interesting
dilemma, but fascinating because Liv Tyler plays Arwen with poignant,
otherworldly tenderness; she has a patience about her that lets us simply
watch and be moved. Think also about Gollum, the obviously computer-generated
creature following Sam and Frodo, who transcends the limitations of technology
and ends up one of the most interesting characters in the piece. A magnificent,
textured vocal performance by Andy Serkis, and writing of compassion and
depth, depict Gollum as a split personality, tragically torn between the
desire to improve himself and the temptations of deception and greed. This
is compelling stuff.
And yet... and yet... there are still more flaws.
The whole thing just feels so darn serious. I know that it's not exactly
party time when your universe is under threat from malevolent wizards commanding
armies of unprecedented sizes, but fantasy pictures have a duty to convey
the fact that stakes are high while engaging us on a gut level. The "Star
Wars" series does that beautifully.
Jackson has attempted to inject moments of personality
and humour into his epic, but this is the one area in which he has most clearly
fallen short. The problem with "Fellowship of the Ring" was its chummy first
hour -- the characters were trying to pal around with talk that was all folksy,
and it felt embarrassingly stilted. "The Two Towers" is not dissimilar, with
its scenes of cute little Hobbits being the most flawed. There are pointless
comic relief characters called Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Merry (Dominic Monaghan),
who are seen in cutaways where they wear clothes that don't quite fit and
look to each other with clumsy panic that simply is not funny. Then there
are the heroic Frodo and Sam -- the former played by Elijah Wood with a stiff,
strained expression that always looks like it's going to spill over into
tears; the latter by Sean Astin with an accent that I think is intended as
something quaintly old-fashioned, but comes off like a poor attempt at
Welsh.
By now, many of the devotees will have stopped
reading, because they've gotten offended that anyone would dare to take issue
with any frame of their beloved masterwork. Still, it is right to point out
that however many individual things niggled at me, "The Two Towers" is a
breathtaking achievement in its scope. Once we have a basic grasp on the
story, it's fun to check out the intricacies of the settings, costumes, and
creatures. This is a movie with talking, walking forests, for cryin' out
loud, and -- oh! -- those Orcs, with their grotesque movements, aggressive
proportions and bloodied skins, are truly fearful monsters.
Sometimes -- especially in the forest sequences,
where the living trunks have their own brands of politics and philosophy,
but are nonetheless swept aside as pawns in the larger plot -- we get the
feeling that Jackson is skipping over things that could be sweet and meaningful
in order to work up anticipation for the Battle of Isengard. But what a fight
it is! For forty minutes, vast swarms of Orcs storm a towering wall and scuttle
around steps, gates and grids, while humans, dwarves and elves defend their
fort by unleashing archery, swordplay and hand-to-hand combat. This is stunning
crowd footage and flat-out great cinema.
I was having a conversation with a friend last
week about how, in his early career, Peter Jackson made wonderful gore pictures
like "Bad Taste" and "Braindead" with the budget of a student experimenter,
and how the breathtaking extensiveness of the "Lord of the Rings" pictures
proves that when you give inventive filmmakers a decent amount of money,
they can make it look as if their resources are infinite. I may have gone
on and on about the flaws of "The Two Towers", but the taste it leaves in
the mouth is not bitterness. The conviction and scale of its vision is such
that the mind may have quibbles, but the jaw is forced to drop, before working
into a satisfied smile.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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