The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Directed by Peter Jackson
Frodo Baggins and the other members of the Fellowship continue on their sacred quest to destroy the One Ring--but on separate paths. Their destinies lie at two towers--Orthanc Tower in Isengard, where the corrupt wizard Saruman awaits, and Sauron's fortress at Barad-dur, deep within the dark lands of Mordor.
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What critics say influenced The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
It's traditional for the middle part of a trilogy to be darker than the other installments (think "The Empire Strikes Back").
Indeed, you have to go all the way back to "The Godfather Part II," "The Empire Strikes Back" or "Superman 2" to find a sequel that flows so naturally out of its setup or expands on its themes with such old-fashioned storytelling verve and satisfaction.
But whereas Fellowship did a nice job of balancing quieter moments with the bombast, this action-packed installment often treats its expository scenes as asides (too many good actors — McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Miranda Otto — are given the short shrift in this outing); what's more, the movie doesn't deepen or expand the tale's themes as masterfully as The Empire Strikes Back added to Star Wars' mystique.
…the dark middle films of Lucas and Spielberg’s Indiana Jones trilogy and of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings films are the weakest in their respective series…
No movie creature has been as mesmerizing since the initial appearance of Yoda in “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Sort of ET meets Scooby-Doo, the character is set to become an audience favourite as Yoda did in the second Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back.
But who will spot the references to Robert Mulligan’s The Other and Henry Hathaway’s How the West Was Won?
But who will spot the references to Robert Mulligan’s The Other and Henry Hathaway’s How the West Was Won?
In "The Two Towers," he cribs an iconic image of massed troops from Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda reverie, "Triumph of the Will," but the allusion loses its punch when you realize that another shot of goose-stepping troops has been lifted from "The Wizard of Oz." Tolkien built his story on foundation myths; Jackson builds his on movies: The film's most charming new creature, a mossy shepherd named Treebeard, walks like the heron described by Tolkien but looks like a relation of the animated trees in "Oz."
It's all very satisfying in a geometric, "Triumph of the Will" sort of way.
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Anyone might notice the references to The Wizard of Oz, maybe even those to Wolfgang Petersen’s The NeverEnding Story.
And he's probably right since it appears only trolls in caves and the odd wandering Gollum are unfamiliar with Tolkien's deeply allegorical works, which have lately served as influence and inspiration for everyone from George Lucas and his "Star Wars" mythology on through J.K. Rowling and her wizard-laden Harry Potter books.
Freed from the burden of setting up a story, Jackson kicks off "The Two Towers" with no introduction or recap from "The Fellowship of the Ring" (those expecting an endless "Star Wars"-style crawl will be disappointed), tossing us into the story like — well, like a dwarf tossed into battle, emerging three hours later with our chain mail dented but our spirits high.
His engrossing action style is exciting and dramatic; when the swells of Saruman's army crash into the walls of the king's castle, we could be watching Orson Welles's ''Chimes at Midnight'' as directed by George A. Romero -- Shakespearean-scale bloodshed and loss as an exploitation movie.
Those scenes, in which we were conscious of the physical exertion of the warriors, of their being smeared with earth and sweat, called up Orson Welles’ staging of the Battle of Shrewsbury in his “Chimes at Midnight” (for my money, the greatest battle sequence ever put on film).
Also, check out the film’s amazing battle scenes — possibly the most stunning and beautifully logical of their kind ever committed to film — and you’ll see filmmaking obviously grounded in the combat scenes from Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight.
And not only is Serkis's work surprisingly sensitive and nuanced given the technological wall between him and the rest of the movie, the effects work itself is deservedly legendary: Gollum was easily the best visual effects work in CGI history at his '02 debut, and while he's been surpassed a few times since then ( Avatar , the recent Life of Pi , the Jackson/Serkis collaboration King Kong ), it's shocking how much better Gollum has aged than pretty much any other 10-year-old CGI you could think of - compare, for example, Spider-Man from the same year, which looks absolutely rinky-dink now - not just because his realism remains largely intact, but because of the care and detail put into his visual personality by a very talented roster of effects artists, visual effects made with love that will, for that reason, still look good fifty years on, just like Ray Harryhausen's skeleton warriors in Jason and the Argonauts do today, or going even further back, the parade of wonders in Alexander Korda's production of…
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One need only compare it to the similar, but smaller scale attack sequence in James Cameron's "Aliens" to note the lack of full urgency.
It's sort of like Marlon Brando's performance in "A Streetcar Named Desire."