MickeyMoose15
12-20-2002, 08:30 PM
New Line's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Released December 18th, 2002
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sir Ian McKellen, Sean Astin, Sala Baker, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Martin Csokas, Brad Dourif, Bernard Hill, Christopher Lee, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, Miranda Otto, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler, Karl Urban, Hugo Weaving, David Wenham
Based Upon: The second novel of the classic trilogy of books by J.R.R. Tolkien that nearly singlehandedly established the modern genre of fantasy fiction as we know it. This middle chapter is preceded by The Fellowship of the Ring and followed by The Return of the King.
After much hype and anticipation, it is finally here. The second installment of The Lord of Rings series enters theaters almost one year to the date after the first film became a huge success at the box office. New Line is hoping that Peter Jackson can continue the magic not only in the film making but on the money making as well. The Fellowship of the Ring grossed nearly $300 million in 2001 and New Line is hoping for a bigger return with sequel after a small of amount of releases this year. But will The Two Towers fall under the sequel curse and not perform as well as the sequel or will the ring of power rule once more?
The sequel continues where Fellowship left off with Frodo Baggins and Sam heading toward the land of Mordor with the ring. But they soon realize they are not alone and meet up with the creature Gollum, first as an enemy then as a helpful guide. Meanwhile Sarumen is nearly finished creating his army of 10,000 creatures and sets them out to destroy the human race. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli continue to fight this unmerciful battle helping the people of Rohen as they cower in Helms-Deep. The end looks grim but as we soon discover, there is always hope. Though The Two Towers is three hours in length, two hours and fifty-nine minutes to be exact, Peter Jackson doesn;t make it feel like it. The action is much more consistent then Fellowship and less moments of no action.
Most of the characters are the same as they were except for a few new characters that are introduced in The Two Towers. One of those characters is the creature Gollum. This must be the year for annoying characters, first with Dobby in Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets and now Gollum. Gollum has conflicting emotions and eerie consciousness of what is going on but when he expresses those thoughts in the film, they come off more as comic relief then a great dramatic performance. Not an Oscar winning performance in the least.Elijah Wood continues his great performance as Frodo Baggins. He seems to confident with this character and though he not as seen in this film as with Fellowship, he plays his limited scenes very well even with the computer generated Gollum. John Rhys-Davies' Gimli in turned more into the comic relief of the picture as was the situation with Ron Weasley in Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets but for some reason, it works here. He character was meant to be the comic relief and those comedic moments are needed in the many dark moments of the film. Orlando Bloom is great at Legolas once again and many look forward to his performance outside The Lord of the Rings in next summer's Pirates of the Caribbean.
Overall, The Two Towers is a great improvement from The Fellowship of the Ring. Peter Jackson uses every minute of the three hour picture in wonderful style. The story is much more consisten with the action sequences keeping them spread out and not using too much relay time between the current sequence and the next battle. The characters that were in the Fellowship seem more in tune with their characters which is important in bringing the story to life. The musical score wasn't quite as exciting as in the first film but it still gets your heart pounding in the Battle for Helms-Deep. The only problem that I could see in the film was the creature Gollum. His important to the story but why does he have to be so annoying? Does the audience really need more charactets like Jar-Jar Binks? They needed him in the story but they could have made him less annoying so that his dramatic moments in the film don't come off as comic relief. Outside of that, The Two Towers is a masterpiece. Still not enough to take the number one or two spot this year but a solid third place for the second installment of the fantasy series. Anticipation is starting to build for the final film, The Return of the King, next Christmas.
My Rating: ***** out of 5
Released December 18th, 2002
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Sir Ian McKellen, Sean Astin, Sala Baker, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Billy Boyd, Martin Csokas, Brad Dourif, Bernard Hill, Christopher Lee, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, Miranda Otto, John Rhys-Davies, Andy Serkis, Liv Tyler, Karl Urban, Hugo Weaving, David Wenham
Based Upon: The second novel of the classic trilogy of books by J.R.R. Tolkien that nearly singlehandedly established the modern genre of fantasy fiction as we know it. This middle chapter is preceded by The Fellowship of the Ring and followed by The Return of the King.
After much hype and anticipation, it is finally here. The second installment of The Lord of Rings series enters theaters almost one year to the date after the first film became a huge success at the box office. New Line is hoping that Peter Jackson can continue the magic not only in the film making but on the money making as well. The Fellowship of the Ring grossed nearly $300 million in 2001 and New Line is hoping for a bigger return with sequel after a small of amount of releases this year. But will The Two Towers fall under the sequel curse and not perform as well as the sequel or will the ring of power rule once more?
The sequel continues where Fellowship left off with Frodo Baggins and Sam heading toward the land of Mordor with the ring. But they soon realize they are not alone and meet up with the creature Gollum, first as an enemy then as a helpful guide. Meanwhile Sarumen is nearly finished creating his army of 10,000 creatures and sets them out to destroy the human race. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli continue to fight this unmerciful battle helping the people of Rohen as they cower in Helms-Deep. The end looks grim but as we soon discover, there is always hope. Though The Two Towers is three hours in length, two hours and fifty-nine minutes to be exact, Peter Jackson doesn;t make it feel like it. The action is much more consistent then Fellowship and less moments of no action.
Most of the characters are the same as they were except for a few new characters that are introduced in The Two Towers. One of those characters is the creature Gollum. This must be the year for annoying characters, first with Dobby in Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets and now Gollum. Gollum has conflicting emotions and eerie consciousness of what is going on but when he expresses those thoughts in the film, they come off more as comic relief then a great dramatic performance. Not an Oscar winning performance in the least.Elijah Wood continues his great performance as Frodo Baggins. He seems to confident with this character and though he not as seen in this film as with Fellowship, he plays his limited scenes very well even with the computer generated Gollum. John Rhys-Davies' Gimli in turned more into the comic relief of the picture as was the situation with Ron Weasley in Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets but for some reason, it works here. He character was meant to be the comic relief and those comedic moments are needed in the many dark moments of the film. Orlando Bloom is great at Legolas once again and many look forward to his performance outside The Lord of the Rings in next summer's Pirates of the Caribbean.
Overall, The Two Towers is a great improvement from The Fellowship of the Ring. Peter Jackson uses every minute of the three hour picture in wonderful style. The story is much more consisten with the action sequences keeping them spread out and not using too much relay time between the current sequence and the next battle. The characters that were in the Fellowship seem more in tune with their characters which is important in bringing the story to life. The musical score wasn't quite as exciting as in the first film but it still gets your heart pounding in the Battle for Helms-Deep. The only problem that I could see in the film was the creature Gollum. His important to the story but why does he have to be so annoying? Does the audience really need more charactets like Jar-Jar Binks? They needed him in the story but they could have made him less annoying so that his dramatic moments in the film don't come off as comic relief. Outside of that, The Two Towers is a masterpiece. Still not enough to take the number one or two spot this year but a solid third place for the second installment of the fantasy series. Anticipation is starting to build for the final film, The Return of the King, next Christmas.
My Rating: ***** out of 5