REVIEW
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
Starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen
Directed by Peter Jackson
It was easy to forgive the cuts and embedded scenes in Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring – there was rhyme and there was reason. But the same cannot be said for Jackson’s follow-up, The Two Towers.
Not since Anthony Minghella’s Oscar-winning version of The English Patient has a film adaptation so woefully disregarded its source material. The special effects are great – particularly Gollum (Andy Serkis) – the action sequences are epic and a couple of performances are good, but that’s not enough to make The Two Towers a worthy adaptation of the novel.
The cuts to Tolkien’s classic are inexcusable: Quickbeam, the hastiest Ent, is gone; Anduril, Aragorn’s sword, has yet to appear; Saruman of Many Colours still hasn’t revealed himself; and Pippin’s rendezvous with the Palantir has been pushed to the next movie. Only Quickbeam is an understandable cut – one made for logistical reasons – but his disappearance undermines the development of Treebeard (John Rhys-Davies), one of most important characters in The Two Towers.
The cuts are nothing compared to the scenes that Jackson has added, though. He’s created battles that never happened, partings that never occurred, flashback love scenes that patronize the audience, and idiotic encounters that overthrow the logic of Tolkien’s masterpiece.
One particularly painful sequence finds Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson) being dragged from a cliff by an Orc and a poorly rendered, computer-generated wolf-monster. Aragorn survives the fall and floats down a river, finally washing up against its banks, where he is awoken by Arwen’s (Liv Tyler) dream kiss. Next thing we know, he’s wandering around Rohan on a horse with a wounded shoulder. With shorter hair and a bigger frame, Aragorn could be Maximus (Russell Crowe) in the same scene from Gladiator. Not only is the scene not Tolkien’s, it’s not original.
But the travesty of this addition doesn’t end there. Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) pseudo-grieve over the loss of their friend until Aragorn rejoins them in Helm’s Deep – just in time for a hero’s welcome. This sequence adds nothing to The Two Towers. It’s just a shabby attempt at emotional manipulation. And the worst part is that it’s nowhere to be found in Tolkien’s book.
All of these flaws might be forgivable if Jackson had stayed true to Tolkien’s characters – but he didn’t. The most unrecognizable character in The Two Towers is Boromir’s (Sean Bean) brother, Faramir (David Wenham). In the book Faramir is benevolent and kind, wise and intellectual. In the movie he’s as arrogant and emotionally driven as his brother, which alters all of his dealings with Sam (Sean Astin), Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Gollum. And, in the end, Faramir’s inexplicable change leads to one of the film’s lamest additions: a scene where Frodo stands face to face with a wyvern-mounted Nazgul, escaping through the grace of a single arrow.
Ultimately, the only part of The Two Towers that isn’t disappointing is Gollum. He is the first fully realized CGI character, and Serkis, who provided Gollum’s voice and on-set movement, delivers the movie’s finest performance. The internal struggle between Gollum and Smeagol, his formerly good self, is heartbreaking and realistic. But it’s not nearly enough to save the film.
The Two Towers is not a horrible movie like The Attack of the Clones, but it is a much bigger disappointment. George Lucas lost our faith the moment Jar Jar Binks hit the screen, but Peter Jackson won our trust with his masterful delivery of The Fellowship of the Ring. He has betrayed that trust in The Two Towers, changing Tolkien’s classic into an unrecognizable Hollywood blockbuster. Too bad there’s one more sequel for him to screw up. |
