Finally: Towers

So as if to prove just how incredibly un-hip and not-with-it I really am, I finally saw The Two Towers yesterday. Finally. The problem last year at this time was that I just couldn’t spare three hours out of my life to watch a movie, no matter how much I had been looking forward to it. ‘Tis sad, really.

As expected, it was good. Very good. The battle sequences were just amazing, and Gollum really did live up to the hype; I think this was one of the first times that I almost forgot that I was watching a CGI character. They’ve still got to work on how crisp CGI work sometimes can be, but on the whole, the seamless integration of reality and computerized effects was really amazing.

With anything this good, however, the flaws become that much more apparent - at least to me, Mr. Picky-Movie-Man. Things I could have lived without (or could have been improved) in TTT:

1. Legolas “shield-surfing” down the stairwell in the Rohan battle sequence. Just plain dumb.
2. Gimli the Fall Guy - why is it that short, fat people always play the patsy in movies?
3. Sam’s “we gotta keep going because there’s still some good left in the world” speech at the end of the film in Osgiliath. Someone give me some wine to go with that cheese, please.
4. How the film was building, Building, BUILDING! throughout, and then suddenly within fifteen or twenty minutes all of the various plotlines wrapped themselves up. I was especially annoyed by how the Rohan battle sequence (which was totally ass-kicking) ended with this Monty Python-esque, “Oh, there’s the calvary. We won!” abruptness.
5. How there was almost zero character development. It’s telling that we learned more about a role created by a computer in this film than any of the flesh-and-blood main characters.

That said, this was still pretty damn fine filmmaking, and I’m looking forward to see Return of the King sooner rather than later. I’m trying very hard not to read too much about it, so that I don’t get pulled into the hype bubble that always seems to follow these eagerly awaited sequels. (Revolutions, anyone?)