The second movie in the trilogy this was released back in 2002 but doesn’t seem that long ago for me but feelings and facts can be misleading. ‘Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers’ was directed once again by Peter Jackson and produced by Barrie N. Osbourne, Fran Walsh and of course Pete as well. Screenplay by Walsh, Jackson with Philippa Boyens and Stephen Sinclair. The ensembled cast was vast and included Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Bernard Hill, Christopher Lee, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Miranda Otto, David Wenham, Brad Dourif, Karl Urban and Andy Serkis. And breathe. Back in the beautiful lands of New Zealand it reported cost $94m to make it went on to make shy of a billion dollars with a reported total of $951.2m which is an insane amount of money for a middle sequel of a story. This was well received in cinema’s by fans and cinema goers alike even the critics enjoyed this one with IMDb giving this one a (high for them) 8.7 out of 10 whilst Rotten Tomatoes gave it a hearty 95% which is even more than me and I thought I was always generous with my scores including the low scorers on this list.
This section of the story begins with Frodo and Samwise lost in Emyn Muil near Mordor and discover that they have been tracked by Gollum. Gollum is the former owner of the ring. The One Ring that Frodo bears for his mission of destroying it in the molten lava held within Mount Doom. Taking pity on Gollum he joins the two to guide them towards Mount Doom, they head into Mordor. Meanwhile Aragon, Legolas and Gimli pursue their former companions of Merry and Pippin who have been taken by orcs. This band of orcs are ambushed by Rohirrim the soldiers of the Rohan and are pretty much wiped out allowing the two hobbits the opportunity to escape and flee into the forest of Fangorm where they meet an Ent a large tree like creature who takes an age to vote on a decision. The other three of the fellowship find trails of the two hobbits increasing their hope that the two are still alive. Their search is stopped when they encounter the white wizard who is now Gandalf returning from the dead (for them). Gandalf leads the three to Edoras where he frees Théoden from the hold of Saruman’s control. Releasing Wormtongue they learn that Saruman is planning to attack Rohan and rounding up all the women and children they head to the fortress of Helm’s Deep. Gandalf heads off to whilst the rest dig themselves in and brace for the battle to come. Meanwhile the Ent’s have voted to not get involved in the war but seeing the destruction of the trees by Saruman building an army he is enrages and begins an assault on Isengard Saruman’s castle.
The sandwich of the fantasy story and for me the weakest of the three. Saying that its still miles better than so many films out there. It was the middle section of the epic films from Peter Jackson that were the Lord of the Rings trilogy and was just fantastic. From the scenery to the CGI, it all just worked and was brought together so well. This is the first to have the epic type of battle scene to finish the movie after many different aspects of the story was developed. The hobbits have been separated and he rest of the fellowship are spread across the land rounding up troops and end at Helms Deep which they are defending in the epic conclusion. I have said it too many times this are epic movies which is what they planned on and simply this is what they got. They chose the right country to film they got the right actors, and they took a mammoth epic story, and they lifted the words from the page into an epic story and fair play to them for making this happen as I believe the film industry needed it at the time and was relieved they got it as well. They tried to build on its shoulders later with The Hobbit but as previously reviewed this wasn’t as epic as this one. Although the middle movie its one you must watch to get the full story.
Next up is the nasties horror movie I’ve ever seen and perversely one of the greatest also. Nothing American about this one…
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