Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Obviously, the special effects are going to get a lot of attention.  The character effects were very good, in some cases incredible.

Though, if you don't mind me starting off with a coupla nits, there were some glitches.   The most glaring was the Hobbits riding the tree Ent.  That was clearly done against a blue/green screen, and it looked pretty bad.  The lighting was off, sometimes the background looked like it didn't match the camera angle (looked like it was sliding sideways.)  And the actors pretty much just sat there and delivered their lines.

Ack, I'm now writing this months later.  Let's see what else I can remember.

Scats heard that the last 2/3 of the movie was battle scenes.  That's not a very accurate characterization.  There are a lot of battles, though.  And there was a lot of instances where the good guys came over the hill just in time.  That was a little annoying.  Similarly, a lot of the jokes were pretty contrived and telegraphed badly.  For example, they made a big deal of tossing the dwarf.

There were some pauses for exposition.  They had to pause while Gandalf told his story.  They did do it in flashback, so it wasn't just talking.  But it still felt a bit out of place.

Clearly, Golem was incredible.  The shadows weren't perfect, but it was still very good, overall.

The battle scene with the Ents seemed pretty contrived.  The Ents moved sooo slooow.  It just seemed they shouldn't have been all that much of a threat.   But the plot needed them to triumph, so they did.

The love stories seemed pretty superficial.  Again, just kinda there.

*sigh* It's been so long I'm having trouble coming up with what I liked about it.

I did like that all the orcs were different.  Very individualized.  Not only does that help in telling the few important ones apart, but it aids the verisimilitude.

Looking back on the plot, I'm not sure I agree with my one-liner that I came up with at the time.  Visually it was certainly good.  But I think the story flowed better in the first one.  I guess I'll have to revisit this when I see it on DVD.

On my brother's Total Movie Value Scale, Full Price.  Maybe even more impressive than the first.  Good pace, despite the length. Lotsa action, but not all action.

Editing history:

27/MAY/05 - Misheard.  Ents instead of imps.

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