The Two Towers, second movie in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was on TV last night. I wasn't too impressed. The movie just was going nowhere, it had no head and no tail, it appeared just to be some unidentifiable part from the middle. 80% of the movie appeared to be about a war, and nothing else.
The characters didn't develop, Frodo at the end for example, was the same Frodo as at the start: someone who was suffering under the heavy load of the evil ring. Legolas, as another example, is just a pretty boy with an impressive skillset, especially with the bow (and did you see how he jumped onto that horse?)
Somewhere in the middle of the battle suddenly an army of elves arrived, to help the humans. The leader (Haldier?), some 2-dimensional character, was welcomed as if he was the greatest of heroes. Was I supposed to know him? It was like watching a cameo of a celebrity I didn't know. And 15 minutes later, he was dead.
The Gollem's schizofrenia was an interesting aspect, nicely put onto screen, but it was not worth spending more than 5 minutes on. And that was the best part of the movie. So, what else did the movie need 3 hours for? No idea. I actually looked at my watch several times, I wanted the movie to be over. It's something I want to have seen, but am not really enjoying watching.
I can so not believe that almost half of all people who voted for this movie on IMDB, rate it 10/10.
3 to 4 stars out of 10. The landscapes were nice. The Orks were impressively ugly. The Ents were rather cute.
Re:It is the middle movie
merlyn on 2005-11-06T01:15:47
They're "excellent" provided you read and liked the books. I couldn't get through the books, and the movies as movies failed as well.Re:It is the middle movie
sigzero on 2005-11-06T12:31:47
Good point but I don't necessarily agree. I took my wife and friend to them all and they had not read the books but really enjoyed the movies. I am sure they were not the only ones.
I do agree, having read the books, it was much easier to see the things going on.
Re:It is the middle movie
n1vux on 2005-11-18T00:37:19
I took my wife and friend to them allOne important difference bewteen the 10/10 voters -- readers or not -- and the TV viewer OP maybe be the venue. These are decidely cinematic movies, shot for the big screen, unlike the recent crop of made-for-DVD "movies".
Myself, my response to the release of the first movie was to re-read the "trilogy", or rather, the author's quintology bound in 3 volumes. The movies might have been better had they broken in 4 places as the author intended rather than in 2 as the publisher adjusted?
Re:It is the middle movie
pudge on 2005-11-11T21:42:46
I disagree. But then I liked the movies, so maybe I am not objective enough.
The problem is that it is not supposed to be three movies, just as the story is not supposed to be three books. It should be a single book, and a single movie. The book was originally a single volume, chopped up for marketing and publishing reasons.
Taking it as a single contiguous story, I think it succeeds quite well. Yes, characters don't develop much, though I wouldn't say they don't develop at all.
Aragorn certainly does, a lot: it is in this movie he evolves from the Ranger who helps them get all the way through Lothlorien, to the prospective King who helps win the battle at Helm's Deep.
Merry and Pippin do too: they remain virtually unchanged through the first movie, and change drastically in the second.
There's no development of Frodo and Sam really, but that's fine. They do most of their development on the beginning and end, and the middle just sets them up for the changes in the end.
There's no character development at all, really, for Gimli and Legolas, throughout the story. But they are hundreds or thousands of years old, I don't expect them to change much.:-)
Anyway, the point is that it is one story, not three. It's not meant to be taken on its own. I never watch it by itself (unless to see the battles), I watch them all three together.
