NOTE:

I am going to totally geek out in this entry, so if you haven't seen "The Two Towers" yet, or if you don't plan on seeing it anytime soon, just skip over this one, okay?

Really, I mean it.



Turn back now!



All right, where were we? Ah yes, the "Two Towers" experience and review.

While there wasn't as much buildup to seeing "The Two Towers" as there had been (at least in my mind) for "The Fellowship of the Ring," I was still quite pumped up to see the second Lord of the Rings film on its opening day.

Overall, I was pretty impressed. The battle scenes were almost overwhelming in their detail and scope, especially the battle for Helm's Deep. And all the characters had a relatively equal amount of screen time, though Sam and Frodo seemed somewhat slighted in their chunk of the story. Gimli thankfully got more screen time, though some of it was a bit cheesy (we didn't really need to see him spilling ale into his beard and burping, did we?), and Aragorn and Legolas were both equally heroic.

So let's start with the cool stuff. The battle with the Balrog and Gandalf was great, a nice way to start off the movie, and a nice tie-in to the first film (though there's a geeky, 13-year-old D&D part of me that rebels at the sight of a wizard using a sword!), and it was well done -- the falling scenes were awesome.

I also really liked when Aragorn was tracking the missing hobbits, and recreating the scene, while the viewer gets to see the flashbacks of what really happened. Nicely done, though I really wanted a bit more of the running of him, Legolas, and Gimli -- that's one of my favorite parts of the book, as they're just RUNNING day and night, trying to catch up to the orcs and their lost friends. And did they really have to make Gimli out to be such a whiner, huffing and puffing behind them? Ugh.

I loved Treebeard, loved the Entmoot, and loved the battle of Isengard, especially when they flooded the place and that burning Ent got to put himself out! Yay!

And they did some really nice work with Gollum, especially the wonderful scene of him arguing with himself. I still didn't like the computer-generated stuff that much -- I kept wondering if they couldn't have done it with a skinny, bug-eyed actor instead...

Gandalf's recovery of Theoden was well-done. Loved the transformation there, and Theoden was handled well all around. Great actor -- he was perfect in the part.

And my favorite part of the movie was the return of Gandalf on Shadowfax, just as morning broke, blinding the Orcs, who lowered their spears just in time... goosebump time!

I have to confess, I flipped through the book and probably shouldn't have, because I saw all the things they left out in the movie. No Shelob! No Eomer in the film hardly at all! No Ents outside Helm's Deep! No Pippin and the palantir!

And in looking at the novel, I was reminded of the "additions" that were made to the movie version -- the battle with the Warg Riders (which, while cool, was still marred by too much computer stuff), Frodo's faceoff with the winged Nazgul (unnecessary, really), the detour into Minas Tirith(?) by Faramir (who was also a bit possessed by the ring, ugh), Treebeard carrying Merry and Pippin back to the Shire (no no no), elven archers coming to Helm's Deep (now I sorta liked this, and thought it made sense), and most messy of all, Aragorn's short absence to add some forced tension and set up some clumsy flashbacks.

But most of all, the pacing of the movie was marred by TMA. Too Much Arwen. Yech. This is just not working for me, neither is the romantic hints of a something-something developing between Aragorn and Eowyn (in the book she sorta longs after him, but he's too busy kicking Uruk-hai ass to notice, much). The flashbacks to stuff from the first movie (which, if I understand correctly, were actually a part of the Extended Extended DVD release, which is shitty) pretty much stopped the film dead in its tracks.

I would've much rather have gotten rid of those bits of TMA and focused more on Sam and Frodo's quest, which is really the whole point of the movies, you know. As it is in this version (which I felt was too short, even at 3 hours), Frodo and Sam are just wandering around like a couple hairy-footed fools, with Frodo whining more and more about the ring, and they don't seem much further than they were at the opening of the film. That was frustrating.

And I really wanted to see Shelob! Check out how The Two Towers ends in novel form -- that's a perfect cliffhanger. I can't even remember how the film ended. It just sort of stopped.

Gosh. Golly. Sounds like I didn't really like the film, huh?

I did, I really did enjoy it. But the first film really raised the bar for me, and I think the biggest problem with the movie was the lack of light. Everything was so dark and foreboding, nearly overwhelming, which is more due to the way the books were written than the fault of the filmmakers.

Also, I liked almost all the changes and omissions that were made (by necessity) in the first movie. In the second one, I just didn't agree with the alterations. It's still an awesome movie. About 100 times better than any other action/adventure film out there.

Make that 500 times better. Later!