“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.”
The fellowship is broken. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) & Boromir (Sean Bean) are dead; Merry (Dominic Monaghan) & Pippin (Billy Boyd) have been taken by orcs; Aragorn, Legolas, & Gimli are hot on their heels to try and rescue them; Frodo & Sam have ventured off on their own to Mordor; and the dark lord Sauron grows ever more powerful. The Two Towers starts on a pretty bleak note and only continues on this downward spiral of misery for just shy of four hours. This downbeat tale, along with its middle chapter problem of not having a proper beginning or end culminate to make what is the worst Lord of the Rings film…but that doesn’t mean it’s bad, I mean it’s still pretty incredible.
Peter Jackson continues to adapt Tolkien’s fantasy epic and despite the success of translating Fellowship of the Ring into a film there were still plenty of sceptics when it came to the task of adapting The Two Towers & Return of the King due to their unconventional structure as novels. Each book is split down the middle with the first half telling the story of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli (with the occasional Merry & Pippin chapter), and the second half telling the story of Frodo & Sam. This divide of the narrative simply would not work for film, so Jackson took the only logical approach and intercut between the multiple different narratives over the course of the film. This has the knock-on effect of having to shift the timeline about a bit and move some parts of the plot from the book from Two Towers over into Return of the King and vice-versa in order to make it function properly. But the result is, much like the first film, something that only makes the story feel even bigger and more detailed than it was in the book.
After being taken by orcs, Merry (Dominic Monaghan) & Pippin (Billy Boyd) escape into Fangorn Forest where they meet, and Ent named Treebeard (John Rhys-Davies). Ent’s are a race of trees that have lived in Middle Earth for thousands of years and are among the oldest living races. Together the two Hobbit’s must try and convince Treebeard and the other Ent’s to take action against Saruman (Christopher Lee) in nearby Isengard who is gradually destroying the forest to fuel his operation to build an orc army.
Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) meet the Rohirrim, the legendary Riders of Rohan, as they track down Merry & Pippin. When they determine that the Hobbit’s are safe in Fangorn after reuniting with an old ally they travel to Edoras to warn King Theoden (Bernard Hill) of Saruman’s plan to attack the land of Men. Once they witness the almighty force they are dealing with in Saruman’s army they retreat to Helm’s Deep where they bunker up for a battle of the ages.
Meanwhile Frodo (Elijah Wood) & Sam (Sean Astin) are stalked by Gollum (Andy Serkis) and trap him into leading them to the Black Gate of Mordor. Once they reach the gate and realise that they will not be able to enter without being spotted they are captured by the Knights of Gondor led by Faramir (David Wenham), Boromir’s (Sean Bean) brother, where once again man’s insatiable desire for the power the One Ring stalls the Hobbit’s quest.
The fellowship is broken. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) & Boromir (Sean Bean) are dead; Merry (Dominic Monaghan) & Pippin (Billy Boyd) have been taken by orcs; Aragorn, Legolas, & Gimli are hot on their heels to try and rescue them; Frodo & Sam have ventured off on their own to Mordor; and the dark lord Sauron grows ever more powerful. The Two Towers starts on a pretty bleak note and only continues on this downward spiral of misery for just shy of four hours. This downbeat tale, along with its middle chapter problem of not having a proper beginning or end culminate to make what is the worst Lord of the Rings film…but that doesn’t mean it’s bad, I mean it’s still pretty incredible.
Peter Jackson continues to adapt Tolkien’s fantasy epic and despite the success of translating Fellowship of the Ring into a film there were still plenty of sceptics when it came to the task of adapting The Two Towers & Return of the King due to their unconventional structure as novels. Each book is split down the middle with the first half telling the story of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli (with the occasional Merry & Pippin chapter), and the second half telling the story of Frodo & Sam. This divide of the narrative simply would not work for film, so Jackson took the only logical approach and intercut between the multiple different narratives over the course of the film. This has the knock-on effect of having to shift the timeline about a bit and move some parts of the plot from the book from Two Towers over into Return of the King and vice-versa in order to make it function properly. But the result is, much like the first film, something that only makes the story feel even bigger and more detailed than it was in the book.
After being taken by orcs, Merry (Dominic Monaghan) & Pippin (Billy Boyd) escape into Fangorn Forest where they meet, and Ent named Treebeard (John Rhys-Davies). Ent’s are a race of trees that have lived in Middle Earth for thousands of years and are among the oldest living races. Together the two Hobbit’s must try and convince Treebeard and the other Ent’s to take action against Saruman (Christopher Lee) in nearby Isengard who is gradually destroying the forest to fuel his operation to build an orc army.
Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) meet the Rohirrim, the legendary Riders of Rohan, as they track down Merry & Pippin. When they determine that the Hobbit’s are safe in Fangorn after reuniting with an old ally they travel to Edoras to warn King Theoden (Bernard Hill) of Saruman’s plan to attack the land of Men. Once they witness the almighty force they are dealing with in Saruman’s army they retreat to Helm’s Deep where they bunker up for a battle of the ages.
Meanwhile Frodo (Elijah Wood) & Sam (Sean Astin) are stalked by Gollum (Andy Serkis) and trap him into leading them to the Black Gate of Mordor. Once they reach the gate and realise that they will not be able to enter without being spotted they are captured by the Knights of Gondor led by Faramir (David Wenham), Boromir’s (Sean Bean) brother, where once again man’s insatiable desire for the power the One Ring stalls the Hobbit’s quest.
In case you couldn’t tell by what I said earlier, The Two Towers is my least favourite of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and it all falls down to the pacing. As I previously stated, Peter Jackson did an incredible job of adapting Two Towers to a visual medium by rearranging the story events, but because this is the second act of the story much of the runtime is dedicated to talking about what’s going to happen next. This is most noticeable with the Erodas & King Theoden storyline. Once our heroes arrive at Erodas we are given lengthy sections of battle plans and discussing strategies for the fight against Saruman’s army, as well as a healthy dose of Rohan history, all of which is none too terribly exciting to watch. It does ultimately pay off with one of the most impressive fight scenes in cinematic history, The Battle of Helm’s Deep, but considering the film is 3 hours and 55 minutes long and it feels as though at least 90 minutes of that is just talking about battle plans…that’s a film within itself! I do exaggerate as I doubt it’s quite that long, but it certainly feels as though it goes on forever and it’s mostly because not an awful lot happens in The Two Towers.
Merry & Pippin spend the entire film being carried. Firstly, by Orcs and then later by Treebeard; and whilst all of these scenes are generally quite light-hearted and funny, again they are so dialogue and exposition heavy that they slow the pace to a crawl at times. Much like the Rohan storyline, the two Hobbits spend much of The Two Towers trying to convince Treebeard and the other Ent’s of two things: Firstly: That they are not orcs; and Secondly: That the Ent’s should fight Sauron and the remainder of his forces at Isengard for their survival as a species. Again, this pays off with a spectacular action scene at the end, but it took three and a half hours to get there so it feels extremely long winded for what needed to be done.
Sam and Frodo have the best story for the most part, as much of their story revolves around learning about Gollum and spending time with the strange creature. But their story climax ends up with them being captured by Faramir and then having lengthy dialogue that has no real point to it beyond Faramir saying he wants Frodo’s ring. These scenes are really drawn out too and happen over the course of an hour or so.
This is exactly what I mean by middle chapter problem. Once the few remaining plot threads from Fellowship are tied up, it spends the rest of the film setting up the events of Return of the King. It doesn’t really have an identity of its own.
Two Towers is at its best when Gollum is on screen. Andy Serkis provides the performance of his career as he spends the whole film in a motion capture suit flailing about on the ground and screaming. Gollum is terrifying in an uncanny valley sort of way, the CGI on Serkis’ mo-cap performance is so well rendered that it can be difficult to tell it apart from reality at times, and during these moments Gollum really shines as the best thing about Two Towers.
Treebeard is also pretty great, but as his face was mostly made using animatronics it is more obvious that he isn’t truly alive at times thanks to his jerky movements and facial expressions.
The use of CGI is much more prominent in Two Towers than Fellowship with it being relied on much more for the battle sequences. All the battles in this film are of a much larger scale than that of Fellowship’s, as a result armies of soldiers usually consist of a few dozen extras who are then cloned using CGI to create armies of tens of thousands. It’s done in a way that you would never notice whilst watching the film normally, but if you were to freeze the film at the right moment you might be able to catch one or two repeated faces in a frame.
Merry & Pippin spend the entire film being carried. Firstly, by Orcs and then later by Treebeard; and whilst all of these scenes are generally quite light-hearted and funny, again they are so dialogue and exposition heavy that they slow the pace to a crawl at times. Much like the Rohan storyline, the two Hobbits spend much of The Two Towers trying to convince Treebeard and the other Ent’s of two things: Firstly: That they are not orcs; and Secondly: That the Ent’s should fight Sauron and the remainder of his forces at Isengard for their survival as a species. Again, this pays off with a spectacular action scene at the end, but it took three and a half hours to get there so it feels extremely long winded for what needed to be done.
Sam and Frodo have the best story for the most part, as much of their story revolves around learning about Gollum and spending time with the strange creature. But their story climax ends up with them being captured by Faramir and then having lengthy dialogue that has no real point to it beyond Faramir saying he wants Frodo’s ring. These scenes are really drawn out too and happen over the course of an hour or so.
This is exactly what I mean by middle chapter problem. Once the few remaining plot threads from Fellowship are tied up, it spends the rest of the film setting up the events of Return of the King. It doesn’t really have an identity of its own.
Two Towers is at its best when Gollum is on screen. Andy Serkis provides the performance of his career as he spends the whole film in a motion capture suit flailing about on the ground and screaming. Gollum is terrifying in an uncanny valley sort of way, the CGI on Serkis’ mo-cap performance is so well rendered that it can be difficult to tell it apart from reality at times, and during these moments Gollum really shines as the best thing about Two Towers.
Treebeard is also pretty great, but as his face was mostly made using animatronics it is more obvious that he isn’t truly alive at times thanks to his jerky movements and facial expressions.
The use of CGI is much more prominent in Two Towers than Fellowship with it being relied on much more for the battle sequences. All the battles in this film are of a much larger scale than that of Fellowship’s, as a result armies of soldiers usually consist of a few dozen extras who are then cloned using CGI to create armies of tens of thousands. It’s done in a way that you would never notice whilst watching the film normally, but if you were to freeze the film at the right moment you might be able to catch one or two repeated faces in a frame.
We’re also introduced to many new characters once Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli arrive in Rohan. First and foremost, we have King Theoden. Theoden is in a troublesome position, fresh off the back of being possessed by Saruman, his son is dead, his army has been banished, and his kingdom is on the verge of invasion. Understandably spirits are low, and defeat is all but guaranteed. Yet Hill’s performance as Theoden allows those fleeting glimpses of hope shine through brighter and more powerfully than the usual fare of preparing for the inevitable. It makes Theoden a much warmer character than I remember him being in the books, as well as someone who is much more willing to let travelling strangers aid him because he understands that every extra man he can get will help him.
But his short-sightedness and his typical masculine bravado stop him from realising that there is already one among his ranks who will be able to turn the tide of the battle to come, Miranda Otto’s Eowen. Theoden’s niece is a powerful warrior but is stopped from being able to be that by social stigmas against women and her own uncle’s fear of letting her die in battle. Eowen gets a significantly larger role in the films compared to the books (where women are famously barely present), and shines as the series true heroine of sorts. Otto’s performance is delivered not only with all the grace you would expect of her portraying a historical lady of nobility, but also with all the flaws and determination of more modern female role models that strive to prove that women are just as capable as men. The story tries to squeeze in a love triangle between her, Aragorn, and Arwen (Liv Tyler) but I feel as though this is something that could have been left out. The book manages to make it work because of how the characters are written. But with this it’s always evident that Aragorn has nothing but respect for Eowen because she is not afraid to go to battle and can hold her own in a fight, but she seems to interpret this as him being in love with her so it kind of just doesn’t work so well.
Just across the way in Gondor we also get very acquainted with Faramir during our stint with Frodo & Sam. Faramir’s backstory is really great, always living in his brothers shadow and considered the failure of the family because Boromir always got the glory. Whilst he never wished any harm to come to Boromir, he now sees his passing and the ring arriving to him as a way to finally earn his father’s respect. Understandably when Frodo refuses to give up the ring Faramir begins to fall under the same spell Boromir did and desire its power. Much like Sean Bean in Fellowship, Wenham portrays man succumbing to great power very well, but unlike Bean’s Boromir, Wenham manages to stay somewhat rational throughout. His men are under attack from the armies of Mordor and understandably stressed, tired, hungry, and worn down. This pressure along with the presence of the One Ring would be more than enough to make a weaker man crack under the pressure but Faramir holds it together very well and ultimately comes to see that allowing Frodo to destroy the ring will mean that the corrupting influence the ring has will also be destroyed. We get more from him in Return of the King, but his stint in Two Towers makes him a much more interesting character than his brother who already was one of the Fellowship’s most complex and interesting companions.
And before I move on, I must speak again of Viggo Mortensen’s fantastic performance as Aragorn. He truly shines as perhaps the most perfectly cast among our original fellowship and his opportunities to show us that are presented in full throughout Two Towers. There are plenty of famous stories from the set of the Lord of the Rings films that involve actors being so committed to roles that some truly bizarre things happened, such as Seam Bean climbing a mountain in costume as Boromir to shoot scenes because he didn’t like flying in helicopters. But perhaps the most famous (and most easily recognisable because it made it into the film) is Viggo Mortensen breaking his big toe. In a scene where he, Legolas, and Gimli find the charred remains of some orcs which include some of Merry & Pippin’s belongings they believe the Hobbit’s are dead. In grief and anger Aragorn kicks a nearby orc helmet, however Mortensen kicked it at the wrong angle and the emotional pain we see him go through on screen is actually real physical pain as his toe broke when he kicked the helmet. To top this off Mortensen insisted on continuing with all aspects of his performance once his toe had been checked out by medics because he didn’t want to hold the production up! It’s stories like this that make me fall in love with the films even more.
But his short-sightedness and his typical masculine bravado stop him from realising that there is already one among his ranks who will be able to turn the tide of the battle to come, Miranda Otto’s Eowen. Theoden’s niece is a powerful warrior but is stopped from being able to be that by social stigmas against women and her own uncle’s fear of letting her die in battle. Eowen gets a significantly larger role in the films compared to the books (where women are famously barely present), and shines as the series true heroine of sorts. Otto’s performance is delivered not only with all the grace you would expect of her portraying a historical lady of nobility, but also with all the flaws and determination of more modern female role models that strive to prove that women are just as capable as men. The story tries to squeeze in a love triangle between her, Aragorn, and Arwen (Liv Tyler) but I feel as though this is something that could have been left out. The book manages to make it work because of how the characters are written. But with this it’s always evident that Aragorn has nothing but respect for Eowen because she is not afraid to go to battle and can hold her own in a fight, but she seems to interpret this as him being in love with her so it kind of just doesn’t work so well.
Just across the way in Gondor we also get very acquainted with Faramir during our stint with Frodo & Sam. Faramir’s backstory is really great, always living in his brothers shadow and considered the failure of the family because Boromir always got the glory. Whilst he never wished any harm to come to Boromir, he now sees his passing and the ring arriving to him as a way to finally earn his father’s respect. Understandably when Frodo refuses to give up the ring Faramir begins to fall under the same spell Boromir did and desire its power. Much like Sean Bean in Fellowship, Wenham portrays man succumbing to great power very well, but unlike Bean’s Boromir, Wenham manages to stay somewhat rational throughout. His men are under attack from the armies of Mordor and understandably stressed, tired, hungry, and worn down. This pressure along with the presence of the One Ring would be more than enough to make a weaker man crack under the pressure but Faramir holds it together very well and ultimately comes to see that allowing Frodo to destroy the ring will mean that the corrupting influence the ring has will also be destroyed. We get more from him in Return of the King, but his stint in Two Towers makes him a much more interesting character than his brother who already was one of the Fellowship’s most complex and interesting companions.
And before I move on, I must speak again of Viggo Mortensen’s fantastic performance as Aragorn. He truly shines as perhaps the most perfectly cast among our original fellowship and his opportunities to show us that are presented in full throughout Two Towers. There are plenty of famous stories from the set of the Lord of the Rings films that involve actors being so committed to roles that some truly bizarre things happened, such as Seam Bean climbing a mountain in costume as Boromir to shoot scenes because he didn’t like flying in helicopters. But perhaps the most famous (and most easily recognisable because it made it into the film) is Viggo Mortensen breaking his big toe. In a scene where he, Legolas, and Gimli find the charred remains of some orcs which include some of Merry & Pippin’s belongings they believe the Hobbit’s are dead. In grief and anger Aragorn kicks a nearby orc helmet, however Mortensen kicked it at the wrong angle and the emotional pain we see him go through on screen is actually real physical pain as his toe broke when he kicked the helmet. To top this off Mortensen insisted on continuing with all aspects of his performance once his toe had been checked out by medics because he didn’t want to hold the production up! It’s stories like this that make me fall in love with the films even more.
Two Towers provides the most diversity in landscape over the course of the film. Fellowship certainly had the more breathtaking visuals of New Zealand, but Two Towers has more variety because of the ever changing landscape of Isengard, the Fangorn Forest and surrounding areas, the hilltop city of Edoras, the fort of Helm’s Deep at the bottom of a valley, the Dead Marshes, the Black Gate of Mordor, and the destroyed city of Osgiliath. It’s a lot of variety in visuals and as a result we get the most gorgeous shots of New Zealand’s incredible scenery as we follow our characters journeys. New Zealand is as much an actor in the Lord of the Rings films as any of our main characters. The country has such a wide variety of environments that make it the perfect place to film something like this without the need to hop from country to country for different kinds of locations. Peter Jackson has always been an advocate for the New Zealand film scene which is why The Hobbit trilogy also got filmed there, now whilst those films certainly had a lot of issues involving filming in New Zealand, I’ll cover them another time. But what I’m going for it that The Lord of the Rings is so engrained in New Zealand culture now because of these films that it becomes difficult to separate the two. The Kiwi’s seem to have embraced this as well with much of their tourism efforts being themed around Lord of the Rings. If anything, these three films just act as a brilliant tourism advert for New Zealand and all the reasons why you should go out there.
I feel it’s time to draw this review to a close. But fret not as there is still the final stretch of the journey to go. The Two Towers may be flawed in its story, but this is something that is somewhat unavoidable with a tale of this nature. So, whilst it certainly becomes the weakest of the trilogy because of that, rest assured that the quality in all the other areas either matches or exceeds the quality of the other two films in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Much like I stated at the end of my previous review, do not let the length of the film put you off as it completely justifies being that long. You can always opt for the theatrical releases which are significantly shorter (Two Towers comes in just shy of three hours for that version) but the extended versions contain so much more depth and story that it really is worth seeing them in that form. A story as epic as this does deserve being as fleshed out as possible after all.
I feel it’s time to draw this review to a close. But fret not as there is still the final stretch of the journey to go. The Two Towers may be flawed in its story, but this is something that is somewhat unavoidable with a tale of this nature. So, whilst it certainly becomes the weakest of the trilogy because of that, rest assured that the quality in all the other areas either matches or exceeds the quality of the other two films in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Much like I stated at the end of my previous review, do not let the length of the film put you off as it completely justifies being that long. You can always opt for the theatrical releases which are significantly shorter (Two Towers comes in just shy of three hours for that version) but the extended versions contain so much more depth and story that it really is worth seeing them in that form. A story as epic as this does deserve being as fleshed out as possible after all.