Though the opener last year brought in $860 million through
worldwide distribution and earned thirteen Oscar nominations, I'm
no more the target audience for the "Lord" trilogy than I am for
Richard Wagner's "Ring" cycle. Watching this blaze of cinematic
glory, then, I pretended that "The Two Towers" is allegorical, that
the characters in the movie are stand-ins for real life people in
today's political world.
Let's see how. The title ring confers great, albeit ambiguous,
power on whoever possesses it, which makes the chief hobbit,
Frodo (Elijah Wood) together with his Sancho Panza-like Sam
(Sean Astin) determined to destroy it. Therein lies the only
opportunity for peace in the Middle Earth, now presumably at the
mercy of the white-bearded and white-garbed Saruman
(Christopher Lee) who is determined to rule the world like some
scuzz out of 007. A viewing of "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship
of the Ring" is not essential to pick up the story, which is framed
as a struggle between the forces of good and the armies of evil.
The principal newbie is a computer generated image that
speaks gibberish, Gollum (Andy Serkis), a small, anorectic-thin
creature that could have some out the final scene of "2001` who is
understood by Frodo while the audience gets the gist of his
meaning. Gollum is actually a hobbit who went nuts by holding
onto the ring for centuries Yet another computer generated
character, amazing in its conception, is Treebeard (John Rhys-
Davies), from the race of Ents, who is called upon to join the
forces of good in the upcoming war.
Though we have to listen to the nutcase nonsense spouted by
Gollum, we are riveted by the best parts of the movie, the battles
which are many and not far between. On the side of good,
Gandalf (Ian McKellen) survives an awe-inspiring drop into the
bowels of the Earth, assumed to be lost forever in a ferocious fight
with the dragon-like Balrog.
For romance we get the strange joining in kisses of Arwen the elf
(Liv Tyler) and Aragorn, the handsome human (Viggo Mortensen),
which seems to be to come out of the blue and is hardly the sort
of sizzler that could have lost "The Two Towers" its PG-13 rating.
The series of battles is merely a preparation for the Big One,
which takes place in Helm's Deep, in which a collection of
alliances join in an Armadeggon-like struggle against the evil
Saruman and his large, well-armed armies to say nothing of
Saruman's power to put even a good king (Theoden played by
Bernard Hill) under spells to render him powerless.
Now then, my apologies to those who think that Saddam
Hussein is merely a comical dictator without the ability to make
war against the great powers, but to me, Saddam is the evil
wizard Saruman. As Saruman casts a spell on the good King
Theoden, so the Iraqi dictator works his charms on the people of
his country who elect him with 100% of the vote. (Never mind that
the Kurds were as likely to vote for him as the Jewish seniors in
Florida were to vote for Pat Buchanan.) As Saruman gathers
together his alliance, so Mr. Hussein attempts to convince the
Muslim world that the upcoming war is a clash of civilizations,
requiring all followers to ally themselves against the West. As the
governing bodies on the continent of Europe are reluctant to join
the U.N. in fighting Iraq but are expected to do so once the action
begins, so does Treebeard believe that "this is not our war," that
is, until he realizes that the bad wizard is about to torch him and
his fellows.
The convoluted plot notwithstanding, what gives the "Lord"
trilogy its heft, its huge box office, are the special effects
(supervised by Jim Rygiel), particularly the character of
Gollum whose insanity makes him out to do nasty things to the
hobbits until Frodo convinces him to snap out of it and come
around to the right side. Aside from the genius of Gollum's
creation, this CGI is the one character with conflicting motives
amid thousands who are convinced of the morality of the sides
they have chosen. We marvel at the storm clouds of war, the
bevy of arrows that darken what little exists of sun, the camera
which in the hands of Andrew Lesnie swoops across the height
and depths of Middle Earth to set the stage for Armageddon while
capturing the David-and-Goliath struggle of the outnumbered
forces of good. If a real story about real people is what you prefer,
then you'd best choose among the more weighty films, comedies,
musicals and melodramas alike, such as "Adaptation," "Antwone
Fisher," and "About Schmidt."
Copyright © 2002 Harvey Karten
