Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellan, Viggo Mortenson, Sean Astin, Liv Tyler, Christopher Lee
Director: Peter Jackson
Rated: M15+
THE second instalment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy is longer, as violent and even more breathtaking than the first film.
In The Two Towers, the tightly-knit group protecting the Ring has been broken up. Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Sam Gamgee (Sean Astin) have gone to Mordor alone to destroy the Ring. Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) have been captured by the Uruk-hai. Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) have made friends of the Rohan, a race of humans that is in the path of the upcoming war, led by its aging king, Theoden (Bernard Hill).
The corrupt wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee), under the power of the Dark Lord Sauron, has assembled a huge Uruk-hai army bent on the destruction of humanity and Middle-earth.
The rebellion against Sauron is building and will be led by Gandalf the White (Ian McKellen), who was thought to be dead after the Balrog captured him.
One of the Ring’s original bearers, the creature Gollum (Andy Serkis), has tracked down Frodo and Sam in search of the ‘precious’ Ring, but is captured by the Hobbits and used as a way to lead them to Mt Doom where the war of the Ring is to be fought.
This film is epic in every sense of the word. Peter Jackson realises the mythic proportions of the second book with great distinction. Again, the New Zealand locations are stunning. No wonder their tourism industry has boomed since the first film.
Andrew Lesnie’s cinematography is first rate. The acting is excellent too.
All the old characters are consistent in the way they inhabit Frodo, Gandalf, Sam Aragon and Saruman.
But the new characters are good too. Australian’s Miranda Otto is luminous as Eowyn and David Wenham is every inch the action hero.
There are only three downsides to The Two Towers. At 179 minutes it’s a bit long. Even though the attack on the Rohans is a triumph for Jackson’s direction, it’s drawn out and gory, except that no one bleeds!
Secondly, it would have been a help to have a quick recap of the first film at the beginning of this one. Not everyone who sees this film will be a devotee of the books. Finally, Howard Shore’s impressive music score overpowers the pictures at several points.
The Two Towers is as strongly a moral tale as the first film.
The confrontation with evil is so serious that even nature joins forces with all other spirits and creatures to defend goodness and right.
Carl Jung heavily influenced the author J.R.R. Tolkien, and this sequel can easily be read as a further exploration of a conflicted psyche.
Most notably, however, is the message that carrying the ring is a burden, a dangerous, heavy and essential burden.
Anyone who has ever had the burden of confronting evil head-on will see his or her story writ large on the screen. The Two Towers delivers epic entertainment on nearly every level.
