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Least of the Rings Favorite Movie Quote: "What can men do against such reckless hate?" Two Towers, my favorite of the three books, was my least favorite of the three theatrical releases. The only film that I feel had actual technical and writing mistakes, Phillappa Boyens even admitted that at times she and co-writer Fran Walsh felt like bad mothers neglecting the middle child. Two Towers picks up right where Fellowship left off, with Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippen (Billy Boyd) prisoners to the minions or Saruman (Christopher Lee) as Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) give chase into and across the lands of Rohan. Their winding road eventually takes them to Edoras, chief city of Rohan, where they must reason with King Theodan (the charismatic Bernard Hill) to see the threat that Saruman represents. Most of the movie is spent battling for Helm's Deep, as our heroes try to survive extermination. The highlight of the film for me was Bernard Hill's performance as the noble though insecure King Theodan. From dealing with the neglect of his niece Eowyn (porcelain goddess Miranda Otto) and the death of his son, through the Battle of Helm's Deep, Hill displays a range and complexity of character never present in the book as he delivers what I felt was an Academy Award worthy performance (snubbed). My issues with Two Towers are many and varied. While I think the repositioning of the Shelob sequence into Return of the King was the correct and logical choice, I do not agree with doing the same to the confrontation with Saruman. It's unfinished business that weakens both films for the move. As for the argument that the Saruman sequence was anti-climactic after the Helm's Deep battle - the audience want's to get out of the theater - I submit the end of Return of the King for consumption... and consumption... and consumption... and consumption... I also hated the need to break the tension of the Helm's Deep sequence with both humor and the lame-ass ents. As the battle draws near, the Uruk-hai pound their spears in a rythm of death as we cut to the fearful people of Rohan cowering in the caves and the soldiers holding to their courage - joke! It's almost as if the filmmakers didn't want us taking all this nonsense too seriously. Also, while it's important to show what is going on with the ents - nothing - we didn't need to cut back four times to show the nothing. Furthermore, the ents took two days to say that they wanted to sit this one out, but then Treebeard (voiced by John Rhys-Davies) howls and they all come running before you can say "holy deforestation, Batman!" This in turn leads to the sacking of Isengaard where we are treated to the only really crappy special effect of the whole trilogy: big water. In addition to that, the elves showing up at Helm's Deep really pissed me off. One of the central themes of Lord of the Rings is that it is Man's time to take the reigns of Middle-Earth - the time of the elves is ended. Besides, of course, the pure logistical issues with the elves showing up there and at that time. It's not like they're modern air cavalry. Oh, and orcs speaking English - hated it. I suppose an acknowledgement for Gollum should also be in here somewhere, especially after watching behind the scenes footage of what Andy Serkis put himself through to bring the character to life. However, even though skinny as a gulag detainee, I wonder if it was really necessary to animate the Gollum character in the first place; I much rather have seen Andy Serkis in the flesh than in the bits and bytes. email this review to a friend
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