Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

My rating: 3 - Meh

60 second review: OK, I have to cover a few caveats before we get started:

I absolutely fuckin hate the LotR series of books. I hate Tolkien's classist belief system. I hate his sexism. I hate his absurdity. I hate the black and white morality. I hate the childishness. I hate the Calvinism. I hate the geek fanbois of the series. But most of all... I hate the insipid, ear-and-eye curdling songs (death, destruction, famine everywhere... let's sing!). Gollum is the only interesting character in the whole damn series, because he's the only one not drawn in entirely black or white.

Face it, the books suck. They were the work of a guy who was so geeky, he even created his own language for his own glorification of his own idealized Anglo past, AKA Elvish. He also wrote those "songs" that appear about once every third page and are about as engaging (and complex) as what your 3 year old cousin gurgles into her mashed peas. I cannot get through an entire one of these books, and I've tried... oh, how I've tried, without hurling it with great force across the room at least once.

Now...

That said, I loved the first movie. Peter Jackson obviously loves the subject, and though it does not hold up well upon repeated viewings, this is how you make an epic movie (are you listening, Lucas? You destroyer of my childhood memories, you.). Sure, there were annoyances there (case in point: how many Elijah Wood -does the Julia Roberts look vacuously into the camera and slowly smile- shots does one movie need?), but overall, nice work. Even the Jackson schlock worked (well, except for the orcs. They look retarded and schlocky). The point is, shitty books but a compelling, well done movie.

But that was then. What about the Two Towers?

Well, "suck" is too strong a word, but neither was it "great." I struggle to call it even "good," actually... until I think on it and I realize that it is good. The movie is in a constant state of flux orienting around "good;" sometimes it sucks (dwarf tossing? dwarf tossing?!) and sometimes it's great (Gandalf's battle)

The material doesn't help much: the Two Towers (though better than Fellowship IMO because the first half is mostly non-Frodo), doesn't provide a whole lot of compelling movie material. What almost kills this movie is the ponderousness with which it plods, the self-absorption with its own importance creeps in and the pacing gets sluggish. The first movie was 3+ hours and felt like 90 minutes. The Two Towers is 3+ hours and feels like... 3+ hours. The orcs are still schlocky and ridiculous, the Ents are underplayed (vastly underplayed), Gloin (the dwarf) was turned into a "fuck you, comedic sidekick" for no apparent reason (I'm the one saying "fuck you, comedic sidekick," not Gloin. he's cracking the "jokes". See also: Weasley, Ron, Harry Potter 2), although the audience laughed (and I did too at a couple), it was completely unnecessary and yet another one of those things that a real screenwriter like Charlie Kaufman makes fun of. Best part about the Gloin-cum-Jerry-Lewis routine was the shout out to Terry Pratchett with the whole "sex lives of dwarves" side bit. Still, bad move. Also, Jackson became afflicted with Cameron disease; you know, where because you've spent all this money making a CGI vista or going to a remote location, you must do a 360 aerial shot of the goddamn Titanic bow... er, ridge that Aragorn is walking upon.

The list of annoyances goes on: bad slow mo, bad special effects in parts, absolutely retarded and impossible military tactics, changes to the storyline (logistics? Tolkien gave fuck all care about logistics. And the elves on parade at Helms Deep. etc.) and (again) that abandonment of one of the few interesting parts of the second book: the Ents. Do you know why the Ents are angry? If you read the book, it's because they have no more females. The last one was lost or became a tree, and now they're sad, alone, and horny (Tolkien, of course, doesn't address the horny part). The Ents are also somewhat gray creatures in the book, who only help because they feel like it... and Merry and Pippin almost get killed by them. In the movie, the Treebeard was, I think, voiced by Ian McKellan (bad fuckin move, guys. McKellan's Gandalf, and a good one. Why the hell is Treebeard talking like Gandalf? It ruins the suspension of disbelief and confuses people. Gah) and M and P have one of those Hollywood-inserted Rudy/Disney-esque gipper speeches that motivate (trick) the Ents into battle. The battle at Helms Deep goes on far, far too long and the Ents not long enough. The humans bring Frodo and Sam to fuckin Minas Tirith, which is just retarded (and also not in the book), but I guess they wanted to give a foreshadowing for the final book. Oh, and Wormtongue is absolutely awful: he looks like a reject from your local NiN/Marilyn Manson/shoegazing teen goth fest and, get this, no one ever picked up on the fact that he looked evil. Book: crooked, kinda greasy, known to be a twister of words. Movie: lt's make him look like the Crow. Every minute he was onscreen, I was annoyed by this. And don't even get me started on the military or ecological side of things, I could rant for days.

Which reminds me of an annoyance, and this is solely book-based, the movie had nothing to do with it: Sarumon is so not a badass. You read the first book, you go "OK, bad guy." You read the second book, and that wuss gets his ass annihilated by a bunch of walking trees by the middle of it. Oh yeah, two axis of evil. My ass. He's a puss. An ineffectual puss. Rather than bring out his level 20 white wizard magic against the Ents... he goes and hides in his tower while Merry and Pippin have a nice meal. Big. Fucking. Pussy. The movie, by the way is true to this complete and utter reversal of characterization (when the Ents wipe out Orthanc, Lee/Sarumon just grasps his railing and sways back and forth like someone with autism. 20 seconds ago, he was sending his 10,000 orcs to raid Helm's Deep with a commanding voice. Go figger). But I digress.

If I was so annoyed, why is this a 3, you ask? Because despite all these flaws, it's still an epic movie experience. You've got a broad canvas, and bold strokes of color writ large, and it works. It would have been a far, far better 2:30 movie than the behemoth it actually became (my suggestion, drop the whole Worg/Aragorn "dies" bullshit added storyline and shorten the battle of Helm's Deep), but that's beside the point. It's still got a sweeping arc, Gollum makes his appearance and (in a ham-fisted but effective way) displays his grayness. The strengths outweigh the weaknesses. I mean, there's swordplay! and cool arrow shots! And shit blows up! And there's a grand story underlying all this (in the true sense of the word grand). If nothing else, the opening with Gandalf and the Balrog is worth the price of a matinee. And because I want to see the third movie. That's reason enough for me.

So I'm giving it a 3. I know there's a 4 movie in there, struggling to get out. But until it shows it's svelte 4-like form, a 3 it is.