The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
The Players: Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen,
Liv Tyler, Christopher Lee, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd,
Dominic Monaghan; directed by Peter Jackson
The Skinny: The second part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy
finds the Fellowship splintered. After rescuing hobbits Pippin (Boyd) and
Merry (Monaghan) from the evil Uruk-Hai, Aragorn (Mortensen), Legolas
(Bloom) and Gimli (Rhys-Davies) discover Gandalf (McKellen) is actually
alive and stronger than ever. He leads them to battle against the evil
Saruman (Lee), a disciple of the Dark Lord Sauron, and his army. Meanwhile,
Frodo (Wood) and Sam (Astin) continue on their quest to destroy the Ring.
They meet the miserable creature Gollum, who pretends to take them safely to
the land of Mordor but instead betrays them.
The Bottom Line: The problem with the trilogy’s second installment is
that it doesn’t really have a beginning or an end. Still, Jackson‘s vision
includes bigger and more elaborate battles than in The Fellowship of the
Ring, plus a little more romance–and a giant talking tree. Odds are
it’ll get more Oscar nominations, so long as it doesn’t fall into the
middle-child syndrome.
Opens: Dec. 18
