Orc Chops
Fantasy is at its best when it ennobles our reality, and at the movies this year, no fantastic adventure towers above The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The second installment of J.R.R. Tolkien’s delightful yarn is adapted just as handily as last year’s The Fellowship of the Ring, but in a shift from that film’s generous pacing and visual novelty, director Peter Jackson has forged the middle of his cinematic trilogy with the immediacy of broadsword steel. It’s a wise move.
The story commences with hobbit heroes Sam (Sean Astin, the trilogy’s true star) and Frodo (gushy Elijah Wood, just grin and bear him) abruptly intercepted by the ghoulish Gollum, a sensational animated character voiced and pantomimed with great flair by Andy Serkis. Meanwhile, the big, nasty Uruk-hai orcs of corrupt wizard Saruman the White (Christopher Lee) run around giving everybody hell, including abducted hobbits Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd). Hot on their trail are hunky human Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), elegant elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and droll dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies). Within the first 15 of the film’s brisk 179 minutes, we’ve met most significant characters; within 30, we know virtually all of them.
What remains can be taken as pure spectacle, the screenwriters (Jackson, his wife Fran Walsh, their friend Philippa Boyens and Jackson’s frequent collaborator Stephen Sinclair) having gleefully cut and pasted Tolkien’s epic set pieces. Frodo, Sam and Gollum trudge harrowingly through the Dead Marshes, Merry and Pippin hug a tree (sort of) in Fangorn Forest, and the others drop in on the Vikinglike settlement of Edoras then spend the movie’s final third battling Saruman’s 10,000 orcs from the fortress of Helm’s Deep, where Jackson cuts loose on an epic scale.
Jackson also serves up a plethora of supporting characters and subplots. With reborn wizard Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen) in rustic Rohan, we encounter King Théoden (Bernard Hill), whose bold and braless niece Eowyn (Miranda Otto) and sturdy nephew Eomer (Karl Urban) struggle against the greasy, absurdly ill-appointed royal advisor, Gráma Wormtongue (Brad Dourif, sans eyebrows). Meanwhile, Merry and Pippin are shepherded by tall, ancient Treebeard (voiced by John Rhys-Davies, compensating for his dwarf role).
Despite its much deserved praise, the tale’s not perfect. Christopher Lee’s presence is limited to a glorified cameo, and he hardly gets to do anything. Lapses in logic abound, from Aragorn’s blithe release of the demonic Wormtongue to the director’s odd choice to conclude far short of the second book’s thrilling wrap-up. The impact of composer Howard Shore’s primary themes is lessened by their nearly note-for-note similarity to his work in Gangs of New York. Nonetheless, The Two Towers is the year’s greatest adventure, and Jackson’s limited but enthusiastic adaptation has made literature literal without killing its soul — a feat any thinking person is bound to appreciate.
