Prior to seeing THE TWO TOWERS, the last time I had stayed seated for over three and a half hours, I was on a plane hovering in a holding pattern over Austin, TX as we waited for a tornado to die down below. I must say my movie going experience was much more enjoyable and, with those Orcs, only slightly less frightening. Why am I starting my reviews of this trilogy with the second installment? Yes, I have THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING DVD, but the sting of my botched attempt to see it on the big screen is still too fresh. I don't want to talk about it. 

As you may already know, in the weeks leading up to the release of the third and final chapter, THE RETURN OF THE KING, extended versions of the first two films have been showing in selected theaters. So is an extended version of an originally three-hour film really necessary? I'm afraid so. We all know how staggeringly massive Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is. You simply cannot give a modern myth so epic in scope and painstakingly detailed a proper film treatment in our typical hour-and-a-half movie sound bytes. I walked out of this second viewing much more satisfied than when I saw the original version last year. Of course, that may have had to do more with the fact that the first time around, I was in the second row, and seeing a thirty-foot Gollum in all his glorious jerky, clammy wretchedness made me quite ill.

Motion sickness aside, the additional footage does help. I'm not going to pretend to know all of the scenes that were added, but there are a few involving Faramir that really stand out. I don't know about you, but when I see a movie, if things don't quite add up, if character motivations are not quite clear, these things subconsciously nag at me. If such scenes would give us some much needed fleshing out of characters and themes, I wish more films would have longer running times. That is, if they move as quickly as Jackson's do. 

I don't recall ever feeling bored or wondering when this darn thing would end. I can't say the same about hovering over Austin. This second chapter picks up where the first left off; everyone's still after the Ring. Now, not being a devotee of the books, I'm coming to Jackson's interpretation purely as a moviegoer. I'd read THE TWO TOWERS when I was eight, much too young, at least for me, to appreciate it, and when I finally was old enough, I was already well on my way to becoming the two-fisted, guitar-toting illiterate that I am today. Judging from the interviews from the DVD extras, though, I may have to go back and read them now. I understand that the prominence of the Helm's Deep battle comes at the expense of Tolkien's more sublime nuances. In the DVD extras, the screenwriters explain their reasons for making such choices. Film and print are very different media, and, again, approaching these films solely as a filmgoer, I'd say that overall, those choices were good ones.

However, some of you may have read Vance Aahdahl's review (to see Vance's perspective, click HERE) in which he complains of Gimli and Legolas' "glib wisecracks" during battle. I have to agree. This film, for the most part, does such a great job of establishing mood and impressing upon us the peril of Frodo's mission, the gravity of the situation at Helm's Deep, the evil that is the Ring. And then to undermine those things with such anachronistic nonsense is beyond me. The absence of comic relief is not always a bad thing. It's what elevates a film like HERO (check out reviews of that masterpiece by Frost, Silman, and Tom) to the 6.0 stratum and bumps this one down to a 5.0.

The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers
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