DVD Review: Lord of The Rings- The Two Towers (Limited Edition)

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, Theoden (Bernard Hill). The two towers between Mordor and Isengard, Barad-dur 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, Grima 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…

Review:
The only way one can accurately describe The Two Towers is to call it epic. If there was any film out there that would epitomize that word, this would be it. It is a much different film than The Fellowship of the Ring- there is much less intimacy here, in fact, viewers hardly have a chance to catch their breath because there is so much action and the film has to successfully interweave the stories of Sam and Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas and Gimly, and Merry and Pippin, who were all separated into respective groups but all share a role in deciding the fate of the story. The great climax in this film is the battle for Helm’s Deep and I’d have to say that the most unlikely heroes in the film would be Merry and Pippin who end up having a direct influence on the fate of the evil wizard Saruman. As with the first film, director Peter Jackson remains true to the original story as penned by Tolkien, which is, in my opinion, Jackson’s greatest triumph. Not once through the course of the two film did Jackson deviate from the original story which is a true feat in and of itself. If one were to describe The Two Towers in relationship to Fellowship, the best comparison would be to say that The Two Towers is the climactic middle of the story in which everything described in the first film comes to a head and the inhabitants of Middle Earth are finally faced with the reality they have been avoiding for generations- an end to peace and tranquility and the beginning of the dark reign of the Dark Wizard- The Fellowship set the story, and The Two Towers is the unavoidable result. As with the Fellowship, the two-disc special edition is priced right and features both the theatrical and the extended edition. A whipping 43 minutes of extra footage is included in the special edition, bringing the total for the film to around 220 or so minutes. There is also a behind-the-scenes documentary, as with Fellowship, which features the making of The Two Towers which is also a must see. You really needn’t much else of a reason to purchase this great set. The film and the documentary are more than worth every penny, and The Lord of the Rings seems to have an infinite replay value.

Review by Emma Loggins

Grade: A++
Staff Favorite
Official site: http://www.lordoftherings.net/
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