The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers movie Review

So its pretty obvious who'd win a fight between a Gandalf and Dumbedore. A good question would be who'd win a fight between Treebeard and and army of Ewoks.

Major Spoilers.

The Fellowship is broken: Boromir's dead, Pippin and Merry are captured, Arargon, Gimmely, and Legolas are going after them, and Frodo and Sam are continuing their quest to Mt. Doom. And the forces of evil are trying to kill them all. Yeah.

The movie starts off and Frodo is messed up. Why? Well, he's carrying the Ring and Gandalf just died for starters. So, Frodo and Sam are traveling towards Mordor, but they don't really know where they're going. And that's where Gollum comes in, to which my response is "hell yeah!" Gollum is what happens to you if you've had the ring for too long. He had it for like 500 years or something, it's made him a disfigured nutjob with multiple personality. He is one of the greatest movie villains ever. I feel weird about calling him a villain, too, because in Two Towers he tries to do the right thing at first, but in the end he does give into his desire for the ring. Andy Serkis as Gollum... wow. Just wow. The whole thing was done with motion capture, which the Academy's excuse for not giving him the Oscar for best supporting actor (pathetic excuse, mind you). He should've won an Oscar, which is the highest praise you can give a performance, but it still feels like I'm understating it. It's that good.

So he's leading Frodo and Sam to Mordor, and the entire time he's arguing with himself whether or not to kill the Hobbits and take the Ring. At one point he decides not to because Frodo's the first person to be nice to him in literally centuries, but the whole time you know he's gonna snap. Sam knows that too, and that's starting to drive a wedge between him and Frodo. That doesn't really start to happen until Return of the King, but the seeds are planted in this movie. It's painful to watch, too, because you don't want to see them get driven apart because they basically have the ultimate bromance.

That being said, they're journey to Mordor with Gollum is one of my favorite parts of the movie, especially as you see all these armies just move past them, and at one point they're captured, and you know they're gonna get out, but it just feels epic. At the end of the movie, Frodo and Sam are talking, and goes really nostalgic again because Sam's telling Frodo they'res gonna be books about him, and Frodo tells Sam there'll be books about him too. And you believe it. Sam is the only sidekick in the history of movies that genuinely feel like this story could not be told without him. Usually the only way a sidekick ever seems to matter is if he pulls a Nightwing, but Sam stays by his friend until the end, and it's awesome. And then you cut to Gollum and he's decided to kill the hobbits and that freaked me out.

Meanwhile, the three tall badasses of the story are looking for Merry and Pippin. They're hauling ass looking for them too, because they only have so long before the orcs kill them. And on the way, they meet Gandalf, who, as it turns out, got a comic book death. Except now he's the White Wizard, meaning he is a giant badass. They go to this kingdom, and they free the king who's been under the control of Sauron, and then they realize they need to get to Helm's Deep to fight of the Orcs.

I'm just gonna cut straight to Helm's Deep if that's alright with you guys (yes that means I'm skipping over Gimmely's hilarious speech about dwarves DON'T pop up out of holes in the ground- oh wait, I just did). They're at Helm's Deep, and things are looking pretty bad. A MASSIVE army of Orcs is coming to wipe them all out, and they don't have nearly enough men to hold them off. A battalion of elves shows up to help them out, and you think "okay, they might survive this". And then one of the best battles in the history of movies take place. It is so epic and so many heads roll it is ridiculous. I always loved how during this Legolas and Gimmely are counting how many they kill during the fight to see if they can outdo each other, too, 'cause its really funny.

This battle is actually why I Two Towers was my favorite LOTR movie for awhile. Eventually I decided I like Return of the King better, but seriously this fight is awesome. The fact that anyone makes it out alive is astonishing.

And now I'm going to talk about the thing everyone cites as the bad thing Two Towers: the Ents. I don't the same hatred of the Ents that some people seem to, but I'm not especially fond of them. They're just holding Pippin and Merry captive the for a lot of the movie trying to decide what to do with them, and its a bit slow. It doesn't help that Treebeard, the leader, talks...wicked...freaking...slowly, and that the whole thing is a tad boring. It pays off at the end, because the Ents just show up and trash Tower #1 in an also very sweet fight, but still.

But in the end, I saw Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and there was much rejoicing!

So, what you're favorite second movie in a franchise? Comment below, let me know!