The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers [M]

The Fellowship has failed and is now splintered into factions. Frodo and Sam continue to make their way to Mordor with the Ring, unaware that they are being followed. Merry and Pippin, after escaping from their Uruk Hai captors have become acquainted with the Ents of Fangorn Forest. And Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, after learning that Merry and Pippin are safe, venture into the realm of Rohan, seeking allies for the inevitable war for Middle Earth. 

LOVE IT! ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! The brilliance from all departments displayed in Fellowship just gets better with the next instalment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy; The Two Towers. Armed with more superb stunts, more incredible sets (in particular watch out for Edoras and Helm’s Deep), more amazing performances, and more unbelievable special effects, The Two Towers is pretty damned AMAZING! 

The Fellowship has failed and is now splintered into factions. Frodo and Sam continue to make their way to Mordor with the Ring, unaware that they are being followed. Merry and Pippin, after escaping from their Uruk Hai captors have become acquainted with the Ents of Fangorn Forest. And Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, after learning that Merry and Pippin are safe, venture into the realm of Rohan, seeking allies for the inevitable war for Middle Earth. 

All right, so first I must draw attention to the special effects because they achieved something here that is just incredible and has redefined/shattered the line between actor and voice actor: the character of Gollum. So Gollum was always going to be computer-generated character, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind, but the problem with that is that this character is a particularly strong one and therefore, needs to be as strong as any of the actors in the flesh. So, Peter Jackson has cast Andy Serkis to not only provide the Gollum voice, but also to deliver an entire performance, voice and body, which is then motion-captured and the physical fantasy creature of Gollum is then based on Andy’s movements and facial expressions. The use of technology is simply staggering and special applause must be given to Andy Serkis who delivers an amazing performance and we never even get to see him in the flesh! 

I’d like to also too, draw attention to the screenplay because it didn’t really get a mention in the review of the first movie, namely because these films are really visual films. What I particularly liked about The Two Towers was that a little more subtle and clever comedy crept into the mix. In the first film, it was Pippin who provided most of the comic relief, but now that the Fellowship has splintered, we actually get to see a stronger sense of companionship and friendship develop, the most lovely and funniest being that between Legolas and Gimli who soon begin to have competitions of who can slay the most foes in battle. The banter between the two of them is just gorgeous and very funny and they do take over the post of comic relief duo. It’s really very entertaining. 

I want to also give the stunt team a great round of applause because the stunts in this film were absolutely sensational. Because the first movie was more of an introductory thing, we didn’t get to see all that much action, but in this film there are all manner of battles and the stunts, swordplay, routines, and everything were just astounding! All our favourite characters are back with the addition of a few new ones including a race of tree-like beings known as the Ents. I draw special attention to this because the Ents were absolutely phenomenal! Treebeard was an actual life-size puppet that Dominic and Billy could be held by and look at, and the special effects that came in to play during the climactic battle scene… phenomenal, ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL! 

Starring Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, Jonathan Rhys-Davies, Sir Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Bernard Hill, Karl Urban, Miranda Otto, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Andy Serkis, Cate Blanchett, Brad Douriff, and David Wenham, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is an astounding movie packed with action, adventure, romance, war, and comedy. IT’S FANTASTIC, IT’S JUST FANTASTIC!!!