Film review
We got only a glimpse of Gollum in "The Fellowship of the Ring" (above), but in "The Two Towers," the computer-generated Gollum (masterfully voiced by Andy Serkis) steals the show.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
While I was watching “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” last night, I had an epiphany: “Rings” trilogy writer-director Peter Jackson has filled the cinematic void that writer-director George Lucas left when the “Star Wars” franchise died with the appallingly awful “The Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones.”
I was a huge “Star Wars” fan when I was a kid, so 1999’s “Phantom Menace” was a blow to my inner moviegoing child. I had hoped that after the shitty reviews of “Menace,” Lucas would redeem himself with “Clones.” He did not.
“The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” roused my inner moviegoing child from its coma last year, and “The Two Towers” is keeping it alive.
I won’t rehash the entire plot of “The Two Towers,” which clocks in at just under three hours, because there’s too much plot to tell. But I’ll divulge some essentials.
The film begins with the reappearance of the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen). (I’m not ruining anything because Gandalf appears on the movie posters and in the other movie ads and you knew that he wasn’t dead anyway.) After his ordeal with the fiery demon, Gandalf finally has gained some real powers (remember that the evil wizard Saruman [Christopher Lee] tossed Gandalf around like a rag doll in “Fellowship”).
After it reunites us with Gandalf, “Two Towers” picks up where “Fellowship” left off: Hobbits Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) are heading toward Mordor to destroy the ring, and hunky human Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), cute blond elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) are looking for the abducted Hobbits Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd).
Frodo and Sam are soon joined by Gollum, the previous owner of the ring (“my precious,” he calls it) whose lust for its evil power was so great that it transformed him from a Hobbit named Smeagol into a hideous creature with a split personality.
The computer-generated Gollum, hissingly voiced by Andy Serkis, upstages the flesh-and-blood actors, proving that a computer-generated character can work (take that, Jar Jar Binks).
Gollum, with huge blue eyes larger only than Frodo’s, apparently reminds ring-bearer Frodo what he could become himself, and Frodo takes pity upon Gollum and tries to reform Gollum by calling him Smeagol and by treating him with compassion.
Gollum/Smeagol is conflicted, to put in mildly, and in perhaps the best scene I’ve seen in a film this year, Gollum’s personalities duke it out over whether Gollum should kill Frodo and Sam and take back the ring or whether Smeagol should guide Frodo and Sam into Mordor so that Frodo can destroy the ring by throwing it into Mount Doom, a volcano.
It’s nice to see all of the characters from “Fellowship” again, although I would have liked to have seen more of Cate Blanchett as the Elf Queen Galadriel (she makes only a brief appearance in “Towers”), and I would have liked to have seen elf Arwen (Liv Tyler) do more in “Towers” than pine away for Aragorn.
“The Two Towers” has a different tone than that of “Fellowship,” but it’s just as fulfilling, if not more so. While Frodo was central in “Fellowship” and we were were getting to know the characters, in “Towers” long periods of time go by without Frodo on screen, and now that we already know most of the characters, we can get on with the action.
And boy, do we get on with the action. The best way I can describe the film’s major battle scene is: Wow.
While remaining loyal to the time period of the story, writer-director Jackson, intentionally or not, makes some social commentary.
I couldn’t help but think of George W. Bush and his henchmen while I watched evil wizard Saruman and his henchmen portrayed as being so evil as to threaten every living thing on the planet. And watching the Ents – giant trees that walk and talk – join in the battle against Saruman because they’ve had it with his degradation of the environment, I couldn’t help but fantasize about Ents attacking the White House.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that “Towers” essentially is anti-war (our heroes fight only because they must) and pro-environment.
That Jackson has remained faithful to the spirit of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, entertained us thoroughly and made some social statements in the process – all the while making sure that the fantastic special effects serve the story instead of the other way around (Lucas’ fatal mistake, I think) – is an extraordinary achievement.
Already my inner moviegoing child is worried about what it’s going to do after “The Return of the King” has come and gone and there’s not another “Lord of the Rings” installment to look forward to.
My grade: A
5:04:37 PM 
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