• Directed by Peter Jackson
• Written by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair, and Peter Jackson, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Starring
  • Elijah Wood
  • Ian McKellen
  • Viggo Mortensen
  • Sean Astin

Where do you go after finishing what I previously called “a good movie from a great book”? If you’re Peter Jackson, you take the next logical step: You make the next installment a GREAT movie from a great book. The Two Towers has met and exceeded my expectations.

“That better be your beltbuckle I’m feeling, soldier-boy.”

Beginning where the last one left off with very little catch-up (intro? we don’t have TIME for an intro!), we barrel right into the plight of the split-up Fellowship: Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) are on their lonesome journey to Mordor, soon to encounter Gollum (realized by CGI, based on the performance of Andy Serkis); Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) are in the clutches of a troop of Uruk-Hai warriors, soon to encounter Treebeard (voice by John Rhys-Davies); and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) are dogging the Uruk-Hais’ trail. In quick order, that latter threesome takes center stage for much of the movie, as they meet up again with the nigh-resurrected Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and enter the kingdom of Rohan to prepare for a showdown with Saruman (Christopher Lee) and his TEN THOUSAND orc warriors.

My major complaint of the first movie was that the most important (to me) theme of the novel was downplayed: the awareness that the world is inevitably changing from a Silver Age to something less magical, no matter who wins the current war. I don’t really suspect that Jackson read my review (though it’d be kinda cool to imagine), but whether or not he did, he fixed that flaw and filled this installment to overflowing with melancholy for a passing age. King Theoden of Rohan (Bernard Hill) is a man fighting valiantly against a new enemy, a new kind of orc with organization and weaponry beyond anything seen before, and he’s made keenly aware of the inevitability of the end, even if his own troops have a snowball’s chance in their stand at Helm’s Deep.

“I feel dangerous… yet pretty.”

Ah, Helm’s Deep. Permit me a moment to rhapsodize on what is possibly the best battle ever put on screen. Enhanced by those nifty compooter things, a wholly believable army of ten thousand orcs is set against a few hundred unseasoned defenders, an incredibly moving portrayal of valor in the face of almost certain defeat. The choreography, music, editing, sets, costumes, and all contribute to make the battle the centerpiece of this movie, the first head-on encounter with the might that Sauron (through Saruman) can muster.

The theme of passing also makes sense of the greater inclusion of Arwen (Liv Tyler), beyond simply “upping the girl quotient”: the elves are all but ready to abandon Middle-Earth to its fate, and Arwen is as aware of Aragorn’s mortality, even if he wins the battle, as Theoden is of his kingdom’s mortality. With the inclusion of Eowyn (Miranda Otto), Theoden’s niece who’s obviously smitten with Aragorn, Aragorn is also placed in an awareness of the choice between an old world fading away (personified in his Elven love) and the inevitable future (personified as Eowyn), less magical and ethereal, but more assured.

“So, do you bathe around here often?”

Mortensen’s casting as Aragorn, by the way, was one of my sticking points in the first installment; he didn’t seem to have the worked-in maturity of the “Strider” of the novel. Fortunately, this time out, Aragorn basically has the snot beaten out of him continually, which ends up making him seem very much more matured by harsh experience. In fact, pretty much all of the characters get a boost this time around; in many ways, Jackson has downplayed much of the milieu exploration which Tolkien indulged in to ramp up the personal stories of people caught on the edge of an era.

Obviously, with this much time spent on Helm’s Deep, other parts of the story come off as truncated. Frodo and Sam’s journey with Gollum is shortened, and appropriately so, since most of their role in the novel at this point is walking… walking… still more walking… If anything, all of their scenes are stolen by Gollum, who’s very well presented as a pathetic and pitiable creature who’s no less loathsome for his pitiful condition. (Kudos both to Andy Serkis, who provided the on-set presence, the motion-capture model, and the voice of Gollum, and to the CGI team who brought the poor, ring-haunted creature to life on-screen. CGI is still a rough enough technology that it can’t convince us that the digital creature is actually there, but it allows for enough artistry and nuance that we can forget to notice for a while.)

It slices! It dices! It juliennes!

If anything gets short shrift, it’s Merry and Pippin and Treebeard, which I was expecting anyway as a necessary evil. Thanks to the time constraints of the movie, their role is reduced to the utility of getting the Ents to Isengard in time to kick some wizard ass. But again, to Jackson’s credit, this lesser hobbit duo is much more mature and less bumpkinish in their screen time. (Comic relief duties are largely shifted to Gimli, but since he’s still given plenty of respectable battle time, he doesn’t come off as the designated foil.)

The movie ends at the natural stopping point of the end of Helm’s Deep (flashbacks to the Rankin-Bass version are NOT encouraged), with Frodo and Sam hanging right before their foreshadowed meeting with Shelob (referred to only as “she” by a muttering Gollum). From how much story they’ve got left to cover in the final three hours, I’m going to guess that the burning of the Shire will fall by the wayside in the next movie — a shame, but an understandable decision in the adaptive process. Certainly there were enough well-considered departures from the novel in this movie to convince me of the utility of an appropriate omission of that magnitude.

Yup, knew this guy in high school — mullet and all.

I haven’t awaited each year’s Christmas season this excitedly since I was eleven. And if The Return of the King follows the trend of improvement and surefootedness that The Two Towers represents over The Fellowship of the Ring, we may just end up with a movie whose stature in its medium equals that of Tolkien’s novel in its own arena.

Some Notable Totables:

• Sorry, I refuse to sit in the theater with a clipboard for three hours. (Nor am I excited about counting corpses for the Battle at Helm’s Deep.)