The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers does not achieve the unique majesty of the Fellowship of the Ring, but it might have a more memorable sequence than anything seen in the first movie: the Battle of Helm’s Deep. Sequels take two routes. The Empire Strikes Back route elevates the Trilogy to new heights with a more complex story, or the Die Hard route crafts a fun picture but ultimately acts as a retread of the first movie. While overall LOTR: The Two Towers falls toward the latter, it has enough character development and story progression to only slightly have it below the first movie. Plus The Two Towers builds to what will be one of the greatest war sequences in cinematic history: the Battle of Helm’s Deep. By revolving the story around its battle masterpiece, LOTR: The Two Towers avoids becoming the forgotten movie in the Trilogy and successfully sets up the finale, the Return of the King.
The Two Towers begins where the Fellowship ends: with the sundering of the fellowship. The story splits into 3 parts. Gandalf (Ian McKellen) did not perish from his fall in Moria, but has battled the Balrog he fought in the Fellowship and transformed into Gandalf the White. Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) chase the orcs that captured Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) and are returning them to Saruman (Christopher Lee), who believes they have the ring. Their chase takes them through the man-inhabited country of Rohan, run by King Theoden (Bernard Hill), his right-hand man Grima Wormtongue (Brad Dourif), and his niece Eowyn (Miranda Otto) and nephew Eomer (Karl Urban). Meanwhile, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin), are lost in the labyrinth of mountains they entered at the end of the Fellowship. To get out, they receive the services of Gollum (Andy Serkis), the previous ring owner, who is cursed with multiple personalities and will stop at nothing to reunite with the ring. However, Gollum has also been to Mordor, so Frodo and Sam need him to guide them to Mordor so they can complete their quest.
The special effects take a big jump in The Two Towers, and not just Helm’s Deep (which I will get to), but on a more intimate level. It is shocking to think that Gollum does not exist; apparently Andy Serkis was placed into a motion capture suit, so much credit goes to Serkis and the CGI for not only giving Gollum realistic movements, but for crafting a character with easily discernible personalities.
But the piece de resistance of LOTR: The Two Towers is the 45 minute Battle of Helm’s Deep, where Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Theoden have to defend the people of Rohan from the attacking orcs of Saruman. Apparently the battle was mostly shot in CGI, giving each of the thousands of participants a little memory to choose a fight at random, making the battle sequences believable. The battle encapsulates the many aspects of a war: the tension filled-preparation, the eerie calm before the start of the battle, explosions, and individual heroism. By using a pan-over filming approach as well as gigantic walls for the orcs to climb over, the battle’s grandeur is elevated to Shakespearean levels. All credit goes to the combined efforts of the special effects, art, sound, makeup, and acting departments.
The cinematography department also deserves credit for using New Zealand to distinguish the various lands where these adventures are taking place. Is is easy to distinguish the locations from one another: Rohan’s rolling hills, the bog Sam and Frodo have to go through, Rivendell’s waterfalls, and many other locations. Edoras, the Rohan capital, is described as a hill in front of mountains, which took months for the cinematographers to find the right spot. The detail and specificity is not lost on the viewer and provides a stunning backdrop for the character’s traversing.
The acting is solid across the board. Serkis shines because of the parallel between his Gollum and Elijah Wood’s Frodo, who becomes more weary and paranoid because of the ring’s effects. With Gandalf more in the background in this movie, Viggo Mortensen gets to display more acting chops as his Aragorn has to ascend to the importance of his birthright. The newcomers also bring something to the table: Karl Urban shows youthful loyalty and fire, Miranda Otto provides a strong female character needed in the story, Bernard Hill exudes royalty, David Wenham gives Faramir, Boromir’s brother, self-assuredness and wisdom, and Brad Dourif reeks of deception.
As exhausted as the characters and myself were after the Battle of Helm’s Deep, the Two Towers acknowledges that even more is yet to come. The Two Towers successfully elevates the setup from the Fellowship of the Ring by raising the stakes for the characters as they come closer to their fates. Who would think that hobbits, elves, dwarves, and wizards could elicit such enthusiasm and emotional catharsis?