Reviews: Lord of the Rings: The two towers (movie) |
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By: Bob Luigjes Product Author: n/a Type: Movie Genre: Fantasy Rating: 8
Well, here I write a second review about Lord of the Rings, the movie.
In my last review I said I was looking forward to see the second part. Well I really did, and it was surely worth visiting it.
I can do two things now: Write about the movie as if it is not a film version of the book, or I can write down all the major differences with the book.
I was most irritated about how Faramir was presented. He encountered Frodo and Sam and found out about the Ring. Then he takes them to Osgiliath, because he wants to use the Ring in the war, just like his brother Boromir. He eventually lets them go when the Nazgûl have attacked them in Osgiliath.
Another point: Arwen. She wasn't even mentioned in the second book (I recently read it again) but here she was seen several times, to make the love story more exciting. Luckily it was only in the memory of Aragorn, or still in Rivendell with Elrond. She didn't come to Rohan, as I first feared.
Then about Helm's Deep. There came elves to help, while there never came any elves to Rohan in the book. They didn't have only 300 men to defend Helm's Deep and Éomer and Aragorn stood together on the Deeping Wall. It wasn't Éomer coming to rescue them. It was Erkenbrand, who Gandalf brought with him, and with them, a shadow forest, which swallowed the orcs that fled in it. There are more details to discuss, like Gandalf's horse: Shadowfax, he is black in the book, and white in the movie. He didn't look as special as I hoped, gleaming with silver when Gandalf rode him. But all those details aren't really important. In the book the first part is only about the battles in the west, and the second part about the Frodo and Sam in the east. In the movie they shuffled that. I expected it, and it's good, it makes the movie more exciting.
The movie started really cool; with Gandalf falling in Moria, meanwhile fighting the Balrog. The camera-view was excellently done; it went down after them.
About the characters: Gollum was really great, but I think no one could really disagree with that. He was played very well, although he might have been a little too funny. But when he had a conversation with himself, it looked like you saw to Gollums, while they only used different camera-views. You really saw his face change when he was more like Sméagol, or went back to Gollem. I think he was one of the best-played characters. Then about the Ents. Their appearance was very good, and the low voices suited them well. In the book, the Ents decided at the Entmoot (the council of the Ents) to attack Isengard. In the movie however they decided not to attack, they did that when they saw what happened at their borders. I think it's not logic that Treebeard didn't know about the things Saruman did, but it didn't change the fact that they conquered Isengard in the end. They were really impressive doing that. I can say a lot more about the differences between the book and the movie, and about the positive points in the movie, but I think you really should watch it yourself, and if you haven't read the book yet: really you must read it, it's worth it. So I think that the movie had too many differences with the book. Jackson really crossed the line, especially with Faramir. If you want to turn a book into a film, you shouldn't change characters that much. But if you see this movie apart from the book, you can have much more fun and then the movie is really good. I try to look at it that way, but it's quite tough. Anyway, the battles and most of the characters are great. The special effects and the excitement are both very good. I didn't regret seeing it (actually I already saw it twice in the cinema).
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