The Two Towers is the second chapter in The Lord Of The Rings Epic. The movie picks up right where the first one left off, although it does not give any explanation to the first film, so like myself and others I know, watching the first film over usually the day before seeing this one is a good idea. The film has 3 different stories going at the same time. The three hunters, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are tracking the path of the Uruk-Hai that kidnapped Merry and Pippin at the end of the first film. Another story is the journey of Merry and Pippin, who are trying to escape the horrible fate they will face if they do not get away from their captors. The third story is the most important, with Frodo and Sam trying to navigate their way across middle-earth to get the One Ring to Mount Doom to destroy it. All of the characters undergo changes in their personality through this second film. The three hunters, for example, become closer as friends. Aragorn becomes more confident in his fate lying before him. Legolas, even for an elf, begins to doubt in hope and a few times loses faith. Gimli, on the other hand, has been changed (with good reason) to not only a comic relief character, but a better bad ass than the annoying know it all he played in the first film. Frodo is losing his strength against the ring, more and more it corrupts him, as Sam tries desperately to keep Frodo in line. Elijah Wood gives a much better performance in this fim than the last, mostly because he has much more character to work with. Sean Austin as Sam is simply amazing, and gives a performance that would be Oscar caliber, except for the fact that it's not big enough. Late in the film there is a war between Isengard, one of the two towers of evil that Sarumon (Christopher Lee hamming it up so much that you can see the joy in his evil eyes) is controlling, and the other side of the war is Helm's Deep, a fortress in the mountains owned by the race of man. The war is breathtaking, but cut a bit short. If you see the film, you'll know what I mean. The most amazing element of the film and one of the best special effects I personally have ever seen is the presence of Gollum. Gollum's voice and body movements were performed by British actor Andy Serkis. Every movement that Gollum does in the film was done by Andy in a skin tight white bodysuit, and his voice performance is one of a real junkie. Andy said in an interview that he played Gollum as a junkie, trying to get his "Fix", the fix being the ring. Andy may be nominated for best supporting actor, and he damn well deserves it. My only complaint is the performance of Faramir, the brother of Boromir of the first film. (Boromir was played very well by Sean Bean, he tried to take the ring from Frodo and paid with his life) Faramir is weak to say the least. His timing is bad, his facial expressions are limited to one, and his delivery does not do the rest of the film justice. If I could describe the film in one word it would be "Bigger". Everything is expanded by ten fold, and for a 3 hour film it seems to fly by in an hour and a half. A worthy sequel to the first film, I enjoyed this film the same amount as he first. But you must understand little hobbit, it is a very different experience.
