‘The Two Towers’ is a towering experience

The Lord of the Rings saga continues with Peter Jackson’s beautiful The Two Towers, the middle chapter in J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved fantasy epic. While The Fellowship of the Ring deals mostly with the setting up of the story and characters, The Two Towers proves to be the trilogy’s most action-packed installment.

The hobbits are split up. Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Sam Gamgee (Sean Astin) are continuing their arduous trek to Mordor and Mount Doom. Helping them along the way is Gollum (Andy Serkis), a deformed and slithery creature who once was the protector of the ring. The CGI character, which uses motion-capture technology, is one of the highlights of The Two Towers. Gollum is simultaneously haunting and pathetic; he has a humorous side as well as a dark side. Kudos to Jackson and the screenwriting team for bringing what is admittedly a difficult character to the screen.

Frodo has an interesting relationship with Gollum. Although Sam is rightfully creeped out by the creature, Frodo understands what he has endured. In many ways, Frodo is the “before” shot and Gollum is the “after” shot. The ring has an undeniable power to take hold of a person’s ambitions and cripple their benignity, and this makes Gollum as much a victim as it does a bad guy.

The other two hobbits, Pippin Took (Billy Boyd) and Merry Brandybuck (Dominic Monaghan), are prisoners of the ferociously scary Uruk-hai. Their only refuge is among the talking trees in the Forest of Fangorn.

Trailing behind the hobbits are Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas Greenleaf (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies). Everyone is in a mad dash to help Frodo throw the ring in the fiery mountain at the center of Mordor.

The Two Towers introduces many new characters into the fray, most of them from the human lands of Gondor and Rohan. It is at the outpost known as Helm’s Deep that The Two Towers receives its big battle scene. Like a cork stuck in the side of a mountain, the defensive battlements of Helm’s Deep are impressive. Every castle lover will be thoroughly impressed. There are bridges and passageways, forts and turrets. It’s a breathtaking scenic design and proves to be a fitting battleground for the evil forces of Saruman the White (Christopher Lee) and Sauron (the evil eye).

Gandalf (Ian McKellen) appears to die in The Fellowship of the Ring, but we find out that he merely goes through a progression. He is reborn as Gandalf the White in The Two Towers, sporting glowing clothes and platinum hair. You can’t keep a good man down.

Of the new characters that stand out: Grima Wormtongue (Brad Dourif), the chief adviser of King Théoden (Bernard Hill), is one of my favorites. He is a man corrupted by maleficence, choosing Saruman’s side over the safety of his own people. It’s also hard not to love Treebeard (voiced by Rhys-Davies) and his ultimate decision to convince his leafy friends to attack Isengard.

Miranda Otto’s Eowyn, a woman of Rohan, is the one character I don’t buy. She strikes a romantic chord with Aragorn, but it always feels too convenient. When she eventually takes matters into her own hands and wields a sword in battle, she feels like a Mulan character — interesting, but not groundbreaking. I’d take Liv Tyler’s Arwen any day of the week.

Almost everyone is in agreement that Jackson’s trilogy is some of the best filmmaking in the history of cinema. However, these same people often peg The Two Towers as the weakest of the three. Although I agree, it bears mentioning that having the middle segment be slightly dissatisfying is only natural. The middle portion neither has the great setup of Fellowship nor the fireworks catharsis of The Return of the King.

But still, it’s hard not to look at the character of Gollum and the battle at Helm’s Deep as two of the finest additions in any of the three films. Jackson orchestrates the prolonged fighting at Helm’s Deep as if it were a violent ballet. Every few minutes the tide changes and one often believes that the resistance will fall. It’s an invigorating capstone to an invigorating movie.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

• 2002

• Directed by Peter Jackson

• Written by Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Stephen Sinclair, based on the book by J.R.R. Tolkien

• Starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Orlando Bloom, Liv Tyler, Miranda Otto, Brad Dourif, Andy Serkis, Christopher Lee and Hugo Weaving

• Running time: 179 minutes

• Rated PG-13 for epic battle sequences and scary images

• Bubble score: 4 out of 4

• Click here to purchase The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on DVD.

• Click here to read our review of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.