Gollum rules

"The Two Towers" is the inevitable sequel to Peter Jackson's dramatization of "The Fellowship of the Ring".

The epic battle at Helm's Deep is the climax of the movie, but the real superstar is Gollum. Talk about being worth waiting for! The nasty and unpredictable creature was only momentarily included in the trailer, since Jackson just knew it would bring the house down anyway. Which, of course, it did. The inner struggle between the evil Gollum and the good-hearted but confused Sméagol is a real classic. Is anybody surprised that the evil side eventually wins? Still, Gollum is to be pitied rather than hated. To him, the ring is like a narcotic. That too is nicely captured.

That being said, the weaknesses of Tolkien's LOTR trilogy also shines through at various points. The characters lack depth. There is no real tension between Aragorn and Eowyn, or even between Aragorn and Arwen. Faramir is extremely boring, and the tension between him and his father is somehow missing, too. Ironically, the only figure that undergoes some kind of character development is Gollum, which may be one of the things that make him so interesting!

Another problem is that Tolkien couldn't make up his mind whether LOTR should be a children's story or a fantasy epic for adults. "The Two Towers" is mostly the latter, but the childish aspect comes across in the subplot involving the Ents, giant talking trees spouting beards and very slow minds. I know that the Entish attack on Isengard is supposed to be some kind of symbolic "revenge of nature", but the whole thing nevertheless strikes me as quite ridiculous. Jackson probably didn't dare excise the Ents from the plot, but he should have!

There is also one problem which will bug Tolkien fans - the only actor with a reasonably correct elvish pronunciation is Christopher Lee (Saruman). The others pronounce "Sauron", "Mordor", "Sméagol" and "Déagol" in English rather than in Tolkienesque...

I'm not a great fan of the LOTR universe, but, yes, I did notice!

That being said, "The Two Towers" is nevertheless worth watching. Apart from poor Gollum and the battle at Helm's Deep, I was also somewhat fascinated by Rohan. Is that some kind of Viking village? I think I recognize some of the symbols from Old Norse picture stones...

Four stars - one star off for Treebeard.