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LORD
OF THE RINGS:
THE TWO TOWERS |
Elijah
Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Christopher
Lee, Viggo Mortensen |
Directed
by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Fran Walsh, Peter Jackson, Phillippa Boyens,
Stephen Sinclair
Produced by: Barrie M. Osborne, Peter Jackson, Tim Sanders |
US:
18/12/02 UK: 18/12/02 |
Frodo
and Sam take Gollum prisoner and continue on to Mordor
on the mission to destroy The One Ring. Whilst their
former companions Strider, Legolas, Gimli, Merry and
Pippin make new allies in the Ents, The Riders of Rohan
and the Stewards of Gondor and launch an assault on
Isengard. All the while a growing Shadow falls upon
Middle-earth as the Dark Lord's Army marches on to Gondor. |
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The
worldwide anticipation for the second installment of
the Tolkien trilogy is high. Jackson achieved something
really special in the first combining artistry and great
story telling. This is the one ring that RULES. |
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"Is
it my imagination Legolas .. or are there loads more
extras than the first flick?"
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Exactly
a year after The Fellowship of the Ring (and a year before
The Return of the King), Kiwi director Peter Jackson releases
his take on the more difficult middle book in Tolkien's saga.
And it's another stunner of a film. The story splits, along
with the Fellowship, into three distinct adventures, but Jackson
hops back and forth effortlessly, bridging the gaps and building
the suspense and tension until a jaw-dropping explosion of
action, violence and cathartic emotion at the Battle for Helm's
Deep, where an entire kingdom has gone to hide from the genocidal
wizard Saruman's (Lee) massive army of Uruk-Hai. The film's
themes are startlingly unsettling. As Frodo and Sam (Wood
and Astin) head off toward the fires of Mordor, they are joined
by the obsessive creature Gollum (Serkis); we can see Frodo's
helplessness at resisting the ring's pull on him ... greed
and obsession take their toll. The intriguing man-elf-dwarf
trio of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli (Mortensen, Bloom and Rhys-Davis)
try desperately to defend the stubborn people of Rohan from
the marauding hordes. And Pippin and Merry (Boyd and Monaghan)
escape from the Uruk-Hai but run into the powerful yet isolationist
Ent Treebeard (Rhys-Davies again). Meanwhile, Gandalf the
White (McKellen) appears, very different from the Fellowship's
Gandalf the Grey, but with that same twinkle in his eye.
The epic, sweeping scope is astonishing. Jackson plunges straight
into his tricky multi-pronged narrative without any scene-setting,
and he barely pauses to let us catch our breath. There's a
welcome collection of cutaways in the middle (involving elfs
Tyler, Blanchett and Weaving) to establish the bigger picture
and continue plotlines between the three films, but otherwise
the film charges relentlessly and restlessly forward. Along
the way we get the most amazing CGI character ever put on
screen (Gollum), sweeping drama and romance, startling action
sequences, and more spectacular New Zealand scenery than we
can quite take in. This is magical, expert, passionate filmmaking
that needs to be seen on the big screen. But it is also the
middle of a trilogy, so don't let the fact that it doesn't
have a beginning or an ending put you off--this is a dazzling
film about an epic journey that has real power all its own. |
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