Upon my return to New Zealand for a holiday I thought it a fitting idea to see the next installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy - The Two Towers. I waited until I got back to my home town of Wellington to see it at the Embassy theatre, which has earned the grand title of being the offical Lord of the Rings Theatre, as Wellington is also home town to Peter Jackson and his production company where many of the sets for the movies were filmed.
My first impression in arriving at the Embassy is how LOTR crazy New Zealand seems to be, actually it was quite obvious when you pass a billboard at the airport welcoming you to Middle Earth. On the outside of the Theatre was a huge statue of Gollum climbing over the side of the building. Even though it was 4 pm on a Monday afternoon the Theatre was packed like sardines and had the fever of a sports team playing in their home town, except it's for a movie, and when the light went down - the whole theatre cheered and hooted!
So back to the Two Towers, well what can I say? All in all I think Fellowship of the Ring is a better film, but this doesn't mean The Two Towers isn't a good film, its just different. Fellowship of the Ring is an adventure film at heart, but The Two Towers is an action film, and from what I have heard in interviews Return of the King will be a drama film, and an intense one according to Elijah Woods, who said he cried when he saw some of the completed scenes for the upcoming film. The Two Towers picks up right where Fellowship ends, and from there takes the remainder of the Fellowship on a rollercoaster ride to the battle of helms deep, which must be the longest and largest battle scene ever seen on the silver screen. Likewise Frodo and Sam continue on their way to Mordor, accompanied by the vile creature Gollum, and Merry and Pippin are found by Treebeard, an Ent - who look like trees and are their protectors.
TTT unfortunately doesn't make much sense if you haven't seen Fellowship, but makes Fellowship worth seeing if you haven't, just so that you can see the Two Towers afterwards! One thing I really liked about the movie is that it takes the characters from Fellowship and builds upon all of them, with a more desparate plotline they are all more emotionally charged, as all of them have more to lose.
The computer generation of Gollum was a surprise to me, at first I was disappointed by the idea of Gollum being a CGI creation, but as the movie went on I became captivated by his performance. I became drawn into feeling sorry for him, or revolted by the things he did, and amazed at how much emotion and expression he showed on his face.
As an action film and a bleak one at that, Two Towers has not the beauty of Middle Earth that Fellowship has, which is really the reason why I like Fellowship more than the Two Towers. In the Two Towers the story has shifted gear and instead the audience is thrusted into an intense war story which is equally as dreadful as it is exciting to watch. And of course, the audience clapped and cheered when the credits rolled in the Embassy.
