Once in awhile, you see a movie that just absolutely blows you away. It carries you away emotionally as you get involved in the story, and it also astounds you for the achievement in moviemaking that it is.THE TWO TOWERS does this perhaps better than any film I've seen. It's not the best acted movie in history (Liv Tyler is a bit one note, Miranda Otto a bit bland), but from a technical standpoint, I'm not sure you'll find a better film. Just the achievement of Gollum alone is astounding. I saw (to my chagrin) THE HULK, and there's a great example of how a digital creature doesn't work. Or the three-headed dog in the first Harry Potter movie. Or even the Cave Troll in the first LOTR. You may suspend your disbelief, but in the back of your mind, you know the creature is computer generated. Gollum just can't be fake...can he? After about two minutes on screen, you totally forget he's a computer fabrication. And when he has his "close-up" scene, when he argues with himself, the performance is amazingly convincing. Gollum is breath-taking.
And the Battle of Helm's Deep. Wow!! Not sure there's anything else to say. It's on a par with the Chariot Race in BEN-HUR as a classic of excitement and craft.
But the story itself is told with such obvious loving care that we become emotionally wrapped up in the story. It has a grand sweep to it, sure, but it feels personal too. Peter Jackson is to be highly, highly commended. And surely, when RETURN OF THE KING is released, he will finally get the Oscar he deserves.
The DVD's are astounding too. The Deluxe DVD set for FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING with all the restored scenes and documentaries is the greatest DVD in my collection, and I have hundreds of films. It totally and completely lives up to the promise of the DVD format. Why don't more films restore their deleted scenes back into the movie instead of having you watch them out of context later. Perhaps it's because those scenes actually deserved to be deleted??? In LOTR, the restored scenes simply added depth, character development and MAJESTY to the epic film. These are must-have DVDs. I have seldom been so enthralled with a motion picture. I just can't imagine how anyone can give this film less than 5 stars.
NOTE: I'm not a Tolkien fan. I can't get through the books. I don't even know how the story turns out. But from what I gather from talking to fans of the books, reading online and such, the changes Jackson made to the story are all justified from a cinematic story-telling sense.
PS: The shot of Orlando Bloom flipping himself onto his running horse...that's probably worth the price of admission right there!!!
