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Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers
Click
picture to pre-order DVD.
As Always, a review of The
Film and The DVD (extras)!
The Film:
I have been tolerant of critics' natty mood
swings
long enough.
I can understand a fan of Superman not liking Spider-Man.
I can understand people who simply "did not get it," not liking Minority
Report. However, if so much as one critic bad-mouths Lord
of the Rings: The Two Towers, there is no longer room for debate:
they are truly the village idiot. Forget the village idiots at The Academy
Awards who thought that this film directed itself (No nomination for Peter
Jackson? ...after releasing a film like THIS?). The truth is, this is a
great film, now on DVD. Yes, you probably bought it already. However, let
me repeat what I said in my theatrical release review, and move on to
reviewing the DVD later, shall we...?
Not that it's easy to review a movie of
such epic length, since there is a lot going on here. Since The prior
film's Fellowship of the Ring,
said fellowship has broken up, leading to three separate parties. Hobbits Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam
(Sean Astin), the former of which still possesses The One Ring, are still on
a quest to destroy the ring once and for all at Mount Doom. They are joined (in a matter of speaking) with Gollum,
who to newbies may seem like a new character though is in fact an old
character, from J.R.R. Tolkien's first novel, The Hobbit. He
possessed the ring for 500 years, only to become a shriveled, half-alive
shadow of his former self. Is he looking to get the ring back, or has he
finally learned the real life the ring stole from him so long ago? That's
one of many unraveling mysteries here, which continue in the third film, Return
of the King.
As for the rest of the former Fellowship, Hobbits Merry
(Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) were captured by Orcs at the
end of the last film, only to be saved at the start of this one. In the
confusion during an ambush, the two hobbits escape to an enchanted forest. While
this part of the story sounds a bit odd, it is actually a magnificent achievement
in both special effects and Peter Jackson's directorial skills, not to
mention a perfect representation of the actual story from the book. They spend most of
the picture in the branches of Treebeard; a walking, talking, enchanted tree, and
while they do not really wind up doing anything until the grand (and I do
mean grand) finale, these scenes are among the
most impressive, in an already impressive FX-laden epic. While common
sense cannot allow a viewer to feel that these trees are alive, the
"reality" via these FX suspends belief
long enough to bring with it a sense of awe.
The third and final group of
former-fellowship-members include the man who would be king, Aragorn (Viggo
Mortensen), the elf-archer Legolas (Orlando Bloom), the powerful dwarf
Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), and a newly resurrected Gandolf the
Grey (now Gandolf the White). Gandolf would seem to have perished in the prior film, though his inner magic could
not let him die, knowing that his true destiny had not yet been completed.
Said destiny leads him and Aragorn's party to the human village of Rohan, whose king (Bernard Hill) must be broken from a spell cast by an evil
court wizard named Wormtongue (Brad Dourif). Much of the story's plot
threads lead to here, including one where the king's daughter
(Miranda Otto) has eyes for Aragorn, although his heart is still with the elfin
Arwen (Liv Tyler, whose role in this film is merely in dream sequences, alluding
to the larger role she'll play in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
next year).
All this culminates in a tour-de-force in
the third hour of the film, where the evil wizard Saruman (Christopher
Lee), still under the power of the Dark Lord Sauron, decides to wipe out
all humankind from the face of the Earth...Rohan in particular. This leads
to a particularly gritty battle between no less than 10,000 evil orcs and the
warriors who so bravely fight them against impossible odds; a nice final
hour to this film.
Admittedly, this is a long movie, at just a
minute or two shy of three full hours. However, there is little here that needn't be
told, presuming you're interested in the story. Compare Harry Potter's
past two films, which are insistent on showing us Harry going to Diagon
Ally to buy school supplies. Even in the books, such shopping sprees drag
the story, and they drag in the films even worse. Compare that to this
film, where just about every single frame is pivotal to the story. There are no trips to Harry the Hobbit's
Quick-E-Mart here, and as such, there is little here that should've been left on the
cutting room floor. Those who'd say that the Arwen dream sequences
should've been left out have never read the final book in the trilogy,
whose nuances, without the Arwen sequences here, would make less
sense if she popped in after a whole movie's absence. So
yes, even those scenes are pivotal to the ongoing story.
This movie also deserves kudos
from its CGI creature shop. Given the likes of the annoying Jar-Jar
Binks, and the saccharine "Dobby the house elf" from Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, one might muse that CGI
characters should be left for mere children's cartoons like Toy
Story or Ice Age, not actual
live-action films. Compare Dobby and Jar-Jar, if you dare, to the
so-grotesque-he's-sympathetic Gollum, who was once a Hobbit though now a mere
shell of his former self, seeking the ring like a crack addict in withdrawal.
In him we see the true summit of false promises the ring can bestow; it
gave Gollum longevity to live 500 years, though looking at his mere skin
and bones frame, it clearly was a shallow life indeed. As implied in the
prologue of the first movie, most of said life involved being merely The
Ring's keeper, in a dark cave, until its master's return. If done by the exact same artists who did Jar-Jar or Dobby, Gollum
would look completely fake. As it
stands, Peter Jackson has lobbied to have the actor playing Gollum receive
a Best Supporting Actor nomination. While this is clearly impossible, I can see
why he would try.
However, will this movie please everyone?
Maybe not. As I said in my review of the extended
edition of the Fellowship of the Rings DVD, it's all a matter
of taste. To meat connoisseurs, filet mignon is the dinner of champions;
to say otherwise is to be looked at as a fool. However, what about the
vegetarians? Similarly, there are some people whose firm stance in reality
makes it impossible for them to enjoy a whimsical story of Hobbits and
Orcs and wizards. it must really suck to be them, though I'm just saying;
if you would dare say this film is not to your liking, you must be, quite
frankly, the vegetarian of the movie world. As for the rest of us; anyone
who likes to sink their teeth in a meaty story, will almost irrefutably love
this film. What a great movie.
---Techtite
The DVD:
I have to vent some frustrations here, so I hope all the LOTR fanboys out
there can forgive me. In short, the sales tactics of Lord of the Rings
films so far hits a bit below the belt...particularly the wallet region! Yep; just as it was for The
Fellowship of the Ring, there's a quest to get every fanboy to buy
the film, twice, with a "theatrical version" (this DVD),
and an "extended
edition" later. This is as understandable as it is greedy. The
Dark Lord Sauron would be pleased. Not
that I want to confuse you when deciding what to buy, or what to wait to
buy. The truth is: this DVD is the real deal, which is to say it's the
only way to see the film as it appeared in theaters. Not that an extended
edition doesn't sound worth waiting for. Adding to the difficulty in
making a decision of which to get; a "Gift
Set" (click link to pre-order) includes the extended edition of
the film, plus a sculpted statue of Gollum. Hmmm; maybe that's
going a bit too far in the fandom department! As intrigued
as I am at the character, I hardly want to stare at a "Gollum" on my mantelpiece
every night. Ewww. Okay, enough
editorializing on multiple versions: on to the extras! Well, sadly,
they're all on disc two. I say "sadly" because no extras listed
on disc one means no audio commentary, nor anything like a "trivia
option." I like the way some movies like Spider-Man have little text
messages that pop up, offering trivia about that particular scene. That
sort of feature would be cool to see (and read) on The Two Towers, but as
I said; no extras on disc one. Whatever; let's move on... The
first extras on the menu is a pair of featurettes, both originally airing
on cable TV. One is a Starz Encore Special (14 minutes); the other a WB
special (43 minutes). Best of all; the 8 behind the scenes featurettes
from lordoftherings.net are upgraded to DVD quality (no more postage-stamp
sized video downloaded off the internet!), and are offered on this disc as
well. One of the more amusing extras
is a short film by Sean Astin called "The Long and the Short of
it." It's a cute little clip using some of the most unique character
actors from the film, as a man tries to put up a poster and realizes that
such a job requires the help of both an extremely tall man, and a little
person as well. This is a cute film, which even has its own behind the
scenes featurette. Clicking
"more" offers a second page of extras. The biggest batch of
videos here are the obligatory teasers and TV spots, of which there were
several, throughout this film's publicity campaign (the TV spots menu
includes 16 separate commercials!). Emiliana Torrini's music video, "Gollum's
Song," is also offered. There is also a sneak peek at the extended
edition, in case you need any more temptation to buy two versions of this
film. Best of all is a behind the scenes glimpse (and a 12 minute one, at
that!) of Return of the King. A sneak peek at The Two Towers video
game completes the extras list. Is
this enough to get this DVD? I would say a resounding yes. Let the fanboys
get the extended editions; the regular, theatrical editions were edited
for a reason, and are all the better for it. This is the film as it
appeared in theaters; the one nominated for an Academy Award as Best
Picture. That's more than enough reason to put this on any DVD shelf.
| All text, Title
graphics, and pix not of reviewed products, are created by Techtite,
copyright 1999-2001; all rights reserved. Picture of DVD cover is used only for the purpose of review (and to make shopping for
product easier); it by no means represents any affiliation with Techtite
and the distributors of this product. For further "legalese"
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