DVD Movie Rating for: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

4 out of 5 Stars

Movie Plot of: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The Fellowship has been broken. Boromir (Sean Bean) is dead, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) have gone to Mordor alone to destroy the One Ring, Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) have been captured by the Uruk-hai, and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) have made friends of the Rohan, a race of humans that are in the path of the upcoming war, led by its aging king, Théoden (Bernard Hill). The two towers between Mordor and Isengard, Barad-dúr and Orthanc, have united in their lust for destruction. The corrupt wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee), under the power of the Dark Lord Sauron, and his slimy assistant, Gríma Wormtongue (Brad Dourif), have created a grand Uruk-hai army bent on the destruction of Man and Middle-earth. The rebellion against Sauron is building up and will be led by Gandalf the White (Sir Ian McKellen), who was thought to be dead after the Balrog captured him. One of the Ring's original bearers, the creature Gollum (Andy Serkis), has tracked Frodo and Sam down in search of his 'precious', but is captured by the Hobbits and used as a way to lead them to Mt. Doom. The War of the Ring has now begun...

Sauron's forces increase. His allies grow. The Ringwraiths return in an even more frightening form. Saruman's army of Uruk Hai is ready to launch an assault against Aragorn and the people of Rohan. Yet, the Fellowship is broken and Boromir is dead. For the little hope that is left, Frodo and Sam march on into Mordor, unprotected. A number of new allies join with Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Pippin and Merry. And they must defend Rohan and attack Isengard. Yet, while all this is going on, Sauron's troops mass toward the City of Gondor, for the War of the Ring is about to begin.

DVD Production Details of: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Starring: Elijah Wood, Liv Tyler

Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Box set, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound

Studio: New Line Home Video

DVD Release Date: November 18, 2003
DVD Features:
* (C) 2002 New Line Productions, Inc. The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, and the characters, events, items, and places therein are trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Tolkien Enterprises under license to New Line Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

DISCS 1-2: The Feature:

A new version of the second installment includes over 40 minutes of never-before-seen footage incorporated into the film. (approx. 208 minutes)

Four audio commentaries by the director, writer, the design team, and production team featuring more than 30 participants including Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, Howard Shore, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, and Orlando Bloom.

DISCS 3-4: The Appendices:

Two discs with hours of original content including multiple documentaries and design/photo galleries with thousands of images to give viewers an in-depth behind-the-scenes look at The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

DISC 3:

Adapting the book into a screenplay & planning the film

Designing and inspiration for locations in Middle-earth

Storyboards to pre-visualization

Weta Workshop visit: See sculptors in action as they create weapons, armor, creatures, and miniatures from the film

Atlas of Middle-earth tracing the journey of the Fellowship

An interactive map of New Zealand highlighting the location scouting process

Galleries of art and slideshows with commentaries by the artists

DISC 4:

Sending the actors into battle: sword fighting

Principal photography: Stories from the set

Digital effects including motion capture and the computer program to create the armies of Orcs

Bigatures: a close-up look at the miniatures

Galleries of behind-the-scenes photographs and personal cast photos

Post-Production: editing it all together

Sound design demonstration

DVD-ROM Content: Includes access to exclusive online features

Widescreen anamorphic format

Number of discs: 4

DVD Easter Eggs

None

Cast of the movie: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

• Bruce Allpress .... Aldor
• Sean Astin .... Sam Gamgee
• John Bach .... Madril
• Sala Baker .... Man Flesh Uruk
• Cate Blanchett .... Galadriel
• Orlando Bloom .... Legolas Greenleaf
• Billy Boyd .... Pippin Took
• Jed Brophy .... Sharku/Snaga
• Sam Comery .... Éothain
• Brad Dourif .... Gríma Wormtongue
• Calum Gittins .... Haleth
• Bernard Hill .... Théoden
• Bruce Hopkins .... Gamling
• Paris Howe Strewe .... Théodred
• Christopher Lee .... Saruman
• Nathaniel Lees .... Uglúk
• John Leigh .... Háma
• Robbie Magasiva .... Mauhur
• Robyn Malcolm .... Morwen
• Ian McKellen .... Gandalf
• Dominic Monaghan .... Merry Brandybuck
• Viggo Mortensen .... Aragorn
• Miranda Otto .... Éowyn
• Craig Parker .... Haldir
• Bruce Phillips .... Rohan Soldier
• Robert Pollock .... Mordor Orc
• John Rhys-Davies .... Gimli/ Treebeard (voice)
• Andy Serkis .... Gollum/Sméagol
• Olivia Tennet .... Freda
• Ray Trickett .... Bereg
• Liv Tyler .... Arwen
• Karl Urban .... Éomer
• Stephen Ure .... Grishnákh
• Hugo Weaving .... Elrond
• David Wenham .... Faramir
• Elijah Wood .... Frodo Baggins
• Katie Jackson .... Cute Rohan Refugee Child
• Paul Holmes .... Orc (uncredited)
• Billy Jackson .... Cute Rohan Refugee Child (uncredited)
• Peter Jackson .... Rohirrim Warrior (uncredited)
• Piripi Waretini .... Uruk-Hai soldier (uncredited)

Photo Gallery of the movie: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Click on one of the thumbnails to see the full size, high resolution photographs

Reviews of the movie: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is a seamless continuation of Peter Jackson's epic fantasy based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. After the breaking of the Fellowship, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) journey to Mordor to destroy the One Ring of Power with the creature Gollum as their guide. Meanwhile, Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) join in the defense of the people of Rohan, who are the first target in the eradication of the race of Men by the renegade wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee) and the dark lord Sauron. Fantastic creatures, astounding visual effects, and a climactic battle at the fortress of Helm's Deep make The Two Towers a worthy successor to The Fellowship of the Ring, grander in scale but retaining the story's emotional intimacy. These two films are perhaps the greatest fantasy films ever made, but they're merely a prelude to the cataclysmic events of The Return of the King

Tepid Two Towers
New hideous beasts join the Balrog and Orcs as audience members return to Middle Earth during Director Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), Gandalf the White (Ian McKellen), Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), and five other members of the original Fellowship continue their arduous journey to Mordor to destroy the Ring. Conditions are often intolerable. Powers clash and collide. The battles are fierce and unrelenting. Friendships and alliances are tested. Innocent people and brave warriors lose their lives. Love is found and lost and unreturned. The world is simply a darker place. But even this enormous amount of conflict and drama does not engender a superior sequel to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

The team of screenwriters (Frances Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair, and Peter Jackson) undeniably undertook a difficult task in reproducing J.R.R. Tolkien's epic in script form, but this fact does not excuse the film's slow pace and occasional incomprehensibility. Both major and minor characters are introduced too quickly and little or no time is invested in many of these people, which prevents audience members from connecting and sympathizing with the characters. Théoden (Bernard Hill) orders elderly men and young boys to fight an impossible war, but one cannot connect with the weeping women or terrified men as leaders outfit them in helmets and swords and send them off to a likely death. The writers have not given audience members the time or reason to care.

The overriding theme in The Lord of the Rings is that the good in the world is worth a tremendous fight and that evil cannot prevail despite its overwhelming force, but other themes evolve through various characters and subplots. Few people can miss the dominating theme; Sam Gamgee (Sean Astin) even states this Truth at the end of The Two Towers just in case it has eluded anyone in the story's first six cinematic hours. Unfortunately, many other themes are lost not simply because of exclusion from the original text, but again, because the writers did not invest enough time in explaining the details and significance of certain events. Allowing Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) to return momentarily to clarify certain points and clever monologues by Gollum (voice of Andy Serkis) avoid complete disregard for intelligibility, but more of these not-entirely-innovative but nonetheless helpful techniques would have benefited the film.

Gollum embodies the possibility that any inherently good creature can be transformed into something evil. The entire cast delivers laudable performances once again, but this computer generated character steals the spotlight in every one of his scenes. He appears deformed and acts maliciously, but the writers gave him a tremendous amount of depth and so his deformities and deviance is forgiven. Gollum is complicated, and he is endearing. He has become a slave to the desire for power, but traces of his former Sméagol self penetrate his dominating ugliness--especially in an intense but entertaining forest monologue.

Unfortunately, Gollum also represents the most disturbing reality of the second part of this film series: The Two Towers relies too heavily on its computer generated characters and special effects and not enough on the story and the abilities of its human actors. Legolas Greenleaf (Orlando Bloom) prances off boulders and dramatically flies onto a horse during battle, which elicits laughter during serious moments and detracts from Bloom's natural ability to play the part. The Fellowship of the Ring is not entirely void of these non-human creations, but the focus is on the nine-member Fellowship. The actors are responsible for the overall success or failure of each scene in the first film, but the exact opposite is true for the second film and pure spectacle does not afford cinematic greatness.

Jackson's talented cast is not as present in The Two Towers, but they make a valiant effort to carry the film even through too numerous sweeping landscape scenes. Still, few of the actors exhibit flawless or even nearly flawless performances. Wood and John Rhys-Davies, who plays Gimli, occasionally overreact with melodramatic reactions and facial expressions, though it is admittedly the exception to Wood's otherwise skillful and intriguing performance. Rhys-Davies is particularly guilty of this amateurish act, however, and these poor acting choices coupled with a script that portrays him as a fool cheapens the overall story and discredits the Fellowship. The most troubling acting problem, however, is the lack of chemistry between the lead male characters excluding the hobbits. Every single leader is captivating in his individual monologues and scenes, but their camaraderie seems forced and unauthentic. The camera does most of the work, and the actors rely on background music and other visual effects to compensate for their collective inefficiency. Thankfully, the believability of all other relationships balances this inadequacy, and newcomer Miranda Otto as Éowyn shines.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers lags behind its predecessor, but Jackson and his cast and crew have created another film well worth the price of a movie ticket. The story begs for more explanation and the actors are undermined by technology, but the special effects and computer generated characters will keep audience members content through the three hour duration. One Ring was forged to bind all creatures in the darkness of Mordor--despite the film's faults, don't be the only one to miss this continued journey that will determine if the dark prophecy will come true and send Middle Earth into catastrophic ruin.