The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 87 Days to go: 59
Movie #353: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is a movie without beginning or end. And by that I mean that it starts in the middle of things, and it ends in the middle of things. You aren’t even given the satisfaction of the story of Rohan or the claimed victory at Helm’s Deep, because at the end of the movie Sam (Sean Astin) is telling Frodo (Elijah Wood) how any victories or losses right now are not the end of the story, and there’s far, far more to go.
The Two Towers even backtracks a bit, starting off with Gandalf (Ian McKellen) fending off the thing in the mines from Fellowship, I suppose to show how he ended up not dead and turned into Gandalf the White, though in this first scene they frame it as a dream of Frodo’s. And Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) flashes back as well to the time in the first film when they were all in Rivendell and Arwen (Liv Tyler) was promising her heart to him. Better off her dad Elrond (Hugo Weaving) convinced her to head to the Undying Lands, though, the way Aragorn and Eowyn (Miranda Otto) make eyes at each other the whole second half of the film. (And again, Arwen and Eowyn are too closely related, sound-wise. Are there not the full complement of letters in Middle Earth?)
When I first saw this one in the theater, all I could really follow was the not-at-all subtle anti-industrialization allegory offered up by the tree people, which is pretty irritating. I mean, it’s an irritating attempt at profundity anyway, but it’s also irritating that the story is so hard to follow. It jumps back and forth, across multiple storylines and even more locations, and I simply can’t keep up. Even with the subtitles on tonight — a necessary function, if I’m able to follow a word — I still found it difficult to keep track of every character and every relationship and every motivation and every event. Though I did much better this time around, at least. Woo, subtitles!
Of course, subtitles are their own double-edged sword, because while they allow me to understand that Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) has jokes, and that he and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) have a bit of a playful rivalry, they also make it pretty clear that Gimli has turned into a bit of a joke himself, comic relief as the short little dwarf who can neither see a battle over a wall or jump into it from a ledge. Poor Gimli.
The primary achievement of The Two Towers, though, is Gollum, voiced and acted via motion-capture technology by Andy Serkis. The effects and the rendering of Gollum are exemplary, and I don’t take anything away from Serkis or from Peter Jackson and his whole special effects team with regard to this film or the other two, honestly. It’s a stunning achievement. I just … don’t care.
Not being a big fan of the hobbits to begin with, I’m unaffected by Frodo’s slow descent into madness or his sympathy for the man/creature Smeagol that Gollum used to be. I also don’t care about Sam’s endless attempts to reach Frodo or to thwart Gollum, though I do feel bad for Sean Astin being referred to as the “fat hobbit.” That’s rough. Honestly, as crazed and threatening as Gollum is, I kind of root for him in my own way. He’s far more interesting talking to himself than either of the hobbits are talking to each other, and the idea of “her” killing the two, thanks to Gollum’s manipulations, is a rare bright spot of hope in my journey through these movies.
And there is hope, for Two Towers is the Lord of the Rings film I hate the most, which means that Return of the King will be a slight improvement, and then I will be done with the whole enterprise. So let’s get to it.
Viable Option 