|
...Despite its
many technical strengths...
...Despite the
care and love lavished by Rings-bearer
Peter Jackson in bringing J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy
to the screen...
...Despite its
obvious and undeniable overall quality...
...The
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,
the middle adventure, is an acquired taste.
...What you need
is a taste for breathtaking vistas, densely-populated
scenes, rugged period sets, zippy special effects,
and sustained battle sequences--and a willingness
to do without intimacy or character delineation.
...So, in the interest
of context, here's my take on the original Lord
of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring:
...Maximal admiration,
minimal enjoyment.
...Ditto for installment
number two, which, unburdened with the need
for extensive exposition (and it doesn't recap
at the outset, so be prepared), hits the ground
running (and walking and climbing and crawling
and fighting), proceeding in a more straightforward,
if fractured, way than did its predecessor.
...Once again,
we find ourselves in troubled Middle Earth--in
the land of hobbits and warriors and wizards
and elves and dwarves, oh my--but at an even
stormier stretch of its storied history.
...This middle
fantasy is thus darker and grittier than the
original.
...The characters
we got to know in Fellowship have now
split up into three groupings--all intent on
saving the lives of peaceful Middle Earthlings
from the ambitions of evildoers--and the three
simultaneous journeys comprise three parallel
adventures that converge at the climax of episode
two.
...Most prominent
in this good-versus-evil epic is Aragorn, played
by the intense and commanding Viggo Mortensen.
...But character
takes a distant back seat to spectacle, action,
computer-generated illusion, and majestic cinematography.
...And speaking
of back seats, that's the feeling I get watching
director Peter Jackson's Lord
of the Rings movies: Like that
of a kid in the back seat of a car he's driving
on a long, long trip. The scenery's admittedly
great, but I just can't stop asking: "Are
we there yet?"
...Which is why
we will, as we did with the original, call it
3 stars
out of 4 for Peter Jackson's second sword-and-sorcery
serving, The Lord of
the Rings: The Two Towers.
...So, you ask,
if this Tolkien of our appreciation is so well-made,
what's with the complaining?
...I know: I just
can't help it.
...Force of hobbit.
_____________________________________________
PETER JACKSON
...On his way to
The Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers, New Zealand director
Peter Jackson--now the Kiwi answer to George
Lucas--has also done glittering work in:
...The
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(2001), the first installment of the trilogy,
which earns an amazing 13 Oscar nominations
and 4 Oscars...
...And Heavenly
Creatures (1994), the hypnotic docudrama
about a notorious New Zealand murder case which
also serves to introduce pre-Titanic
Kate Winslet to the international movie audience.
VIGGO
MORTENSEN
...If Viggo Mortensen
now ascends to the rank of high-profile stardom
in the wake of his contribution to the first
two-thirds of the
Lord of the Rings trilogy, we
may find ourselves looking back and noticing
his sturdy work on the way up:
...In A
Perfect Murder (1998), he plays a
struggling artist involved in a murderous romantic
triangle with Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Douglas.
...In director
Gus Van Sant's remake of Alfred Hitchcock's
macabre thriller, Psycho
(1998), he inherits the role of Marion Crane's
lover, Sam Loomis.
...And in the excellent
comedy-drama, A Walk
on the Moon (1999), he plays the
object of straying wife Diane Lane's affection.
|
