Pick of the Week: "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" DVD

I found “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” (2002) to be highly cinematic moviemaking and mythic storytelling. However, it’s basically an action-adventure movie, and for me some of the action sequences became tedious. Although I thought “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (2001) was a more satisfying film, perhaps because it did a little more with character, I still found “The Two Towers” well worth watching on DVD.

“The Two Towers” picks up the story at the point where “The Fellowship of the Ring” leaves off, and I wouldn’t recommend watching the 2002 film to anyone not already familiar with its 2001 predecessor. There is also a third part of “The Lord of the Rings” story, and it will be told in “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003). I find it difficult to think of “The Two Towers” as a standalone movie since it’s actually the middle three hours of a nine-hour story that spans three films. Given that constraint, I think it’s an astonishing achievement.

“The Two Towers” centers around the epic Battle of Helm’s Deep, which involves tens of thousands of combatants, although it’s pretty obvious that most of them are computer-generated. To my way of thinking, there isn’t much verisimilitude or drama in this part of the movie.

The movie intercuts between three stories. One story involves Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) as they continue on toward Mordor to try to destroy the magic Ring. They are joined by a computer-generated character named Gollum with a split personality. Another story is about the two Hobbits Merry and Pippin as they encounter Treebeard, a tall, walking, talking, tree-like creature. The third story follows Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), the Elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom), and the Dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) as they help the humans in the Kingdom of Rohan battle an invading army of evil creatures intent on achieving domination of Middle-earth. One of my favorite actors, Ian McKellen is back as the wizard Gandalf, but alas, he doesn’t get much screen time in “The Two Towers.”