An exciting world of swords, sorcery, heroes and demons unfolds
on the big screen in the epic tale
”
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,
”
currently playing at Premiere Cinemas.
An exciting world of swords, sorcery, heroes and demons unfolds on the big screen in the epic tale “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” currently playing at Premiere Cinemas.
Director Peter Jackson again scores big with the second installment in J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings.”
Jackson is a filmmaker who obviously loves movies because the look and the feel of “The Two Towers,” like its predecessor, “The Fellowship of the Ring,” is simply beautiful to look at – the wide expanse of pristine vistas in the wilderness of New Zealand, where all three parts of the trilogy were filmed over a year and a half.
Not only is the nearly three-hour “The Two Towers” nice to look at, but its tone and pacing has stepped up a notch from the first film. Jackson uses some crisp editing techniques to keep this picture feeling as though it is continually on the move.
As cliche as it might sound, this picture does not feel like it’s three hours long. The influx of new characters and ever-evolving plot gives audiences something to think about as the plot moves toward the impending battle at Helm’s Deep – possibly the best on-screen battle since the opening fight in “Gladiator.”
But while this movie has plenty of action it still has a lot of heart as it depicts Frodo’s growing trouble in controlling the One Ring, which formerly belonged to an evil lord named Sauron. The ring itself had been tainted by its evil owner and anyone else who wears the ring slowly becomes tainted as well.
The prolonged close contact with the ring is beginning to slowly steal away Frodo’s soul and has him doing and saying things the pure-at-heart Hobbit would normally never do.
Frodo’s fate, if he continues to carry the ring, is mirrored in the character Gollum. Once a Hobbit-like creature himself named Smeagol, Gollum was corrupted by the One Ring that Frodo now carries. Gollum relentlessly follows Frodo, hoping to steal the ring, which he longingly refers to as his “precious.” Frodo’s appeal to the part of him that is still Smeagol who is reduced to a a psychotic state with his feelings of power lust and greed battling it out with the few remaining shreds of humanity that he has left.
In many ways, its this part of the story that is most compelling because Smeagol, a computer-animated character based on the body and voice of actor Andy Serkis, gives some of the most moving performances in the film as he struggles with the decision to stick beside his word to Frodo or betray Frodo’s trust, kill him and Sam in their sleep and get the ring back for himself.
The plot picks up almost exactly where Fellowship ended, with Frodo dreaming of the wizard Gandalf’s apparently fatal plunge into the center of the Earth as he battles the fearsome Balrog monster. He awakens to find himself and Sam lost in the mountains surrounding Mordor, home of the evil Sauron.
This movie is not for the squeamish or the very young because the sometimes-graphic battle scenes include decapitations and gruesome creatures called oruh-kai.
