Joe on Lord of the Rings:  The Two Towers

Please note:  This movie review was written
on December 19, 2002.

time: Thursday, 19 December 2002, 12:33pm
mood: hungry for hungry puffs
music: Meatloaf - Two out of Three Ain't Bad

I should start off by saying that I'm not a fan of the books. I tried to read em and they bored the shit out of me. I got about fifty pages into the first book and then I threw it across the room. The whole genre really bores me. Elfs and orks and swords and eurotrash accents.... it all kinda just gets on my nerves. Yeah, I played some D&D when I was a kid, and I even hated it then. I was always trying to bring guns and time-traveling-to-present-day into the game because I was so annoyed by the genre.

When I heard Peter Jackson was doing a big budget Lord of the Rings, I was less than remotely interested. Then I saw the trailer, and I was like "alright, I'll probably see it, just so I know what the fuck everyone is talking about."... and then I saw it and I was like "OMG!! THIS SHIT ROCKS!!!"... cause the first film was fucking awesome.

So, yeah, I got into the Fellowship of the Rings... and yeah, I've been eagerly waiting a friggin year to see the second one.

Yesterday afternoon I saw The Two Towers.

Man was that ever a long day. It started off with some simple christmas shopping. I swung by and picked up The Bear (mistabear) at about 9:45 and we headed to the mall for our shopping. Got a good whack of christmas shopping done and then we were like "shit, the movie's at 12, we better get goin."... so we put off the rest of our shopping till after the movie. We hauled ass to Silver City and got in line for tickets. The lady at the counter is like "well, I could sell you two tickets, but there's only about 10 left in the theater, so you'd have a hard time finding seats." so we were like "fuck that shit" and we got tickets for the 3:30 show. So we went to the mall and beat around there for two and a half hours, finished our shopping and then got back in line at 2:30. There was already a sizable line just to get into the theater.

So, you know, we waited and waited and waited... then we got into the theater and we waited some more.

FINALLY the movie started... wait, that's a lie... about a half hour of commercials started...and not even movie trailers... these are full blown commercials. Cars, cell phones, video games... that shit is starting to get old. The trailers were mostly good. There was a bunch of em and I can't remember em all... but the ones I do remember was a new Finding Nemo trailer, the Pirates trailer, the T3 trailer, the Dumb and Dumber 2 trailer...

anyway... so, yeah.... the movie started... pretty much picked up right where the last one left off.

oh... for the sake of all you's out there that haven't seen the movie or haven't read the books, I'll tell ya right now... there might be some spoilers in here... probably not much, but I don't know what i'm gonna say, so, you know, if you're concerned about having the movie spoiled for you, stop reading right....

here.


So anyway... now that we've gotten rid of THAT riffraff... let's get on with it. The movie picks up with my new CGI hero, Gollum, creeping up on Sam and Frodo.

Man, was the CGI ever good on this fellow... there were a few times when I could notice that it was computer... but most of the time I totally forgot... it's just like watching a actual little nasty person scampering around on screen.

hey... am I the only one who noticed a striking resemblance between Gollum and character actor Steve Buscemi?

And while we're noticing things like this... did anyone else notice that Billy Bibbit from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was dressed up as Meatloaf from the I Would Do Anything For Love video? For that matter, did anyone else notice that fuckin Billy Bibbit from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was in this movie?

anyway...I digest. mmm... microwave popcorn...

My only complaint with this movie isn't with the actual movie itself at all... You see, when I saw the first one, I pretty much just sat in the theater for three and a half hours with my jaw on the floor, unable to believe all of the cool stuff I was seeing... it was simply SEEING this stuff that was so amazing... but watching the second one, I'm somewhat over that... having been amazed at the first one, so I was able to just watch it as a movie rather than as a cinematic event.

So it was easier to pick out things that I didn't like... and I found myself getting bored at times.

The battle scenes were rad. The Monsters were rad. Those fucking tree things were rad. Gollum was rad. That elf dude was rad.

Here's a few things that bothered me:

#1. I'm getting kinda tired of watching Elijah Wood lookin like he's about to throw up all the time. It's like... all he does in these movies... roll his eyes back in his head and look sick.

#2. This guy lookin like Jim Morrison all the time

#3. Sam's weepy "Mr. Frodo, you're so awesome" speeches
#4. These guys ran for three days straight? As IF.
#5. Jim Morrison and Steven Tyler's kid and their little romance. Who cares?

and... that was it. Otherwise it was fuckin dope. The complaints I had were pretty damned small compared to the praise. It's just a brilliant movie. I'm glad that Jackson was given the go ahead (and the money) to just make the movie however he wanted... and it's pretty damned inspiring for me that he was able to pretty much make EXACTLY the movie he wanted without any limitations.

I've run out of things to say about it. Check back with me next year and we'll discuss further.