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Film
New Line Productions
A Review by By Mary Hoffman
[Armadillo 5.1 Spring 2004]
There was no øPreviously, on LOTR€.Ó After a brief glimpse of the snowy Misty Mountains looking like sugar-frosted gingerbread, we zoomed in on the battle between Gandalf and the fiery Balrog. And the pace barely slackened after that, apart from the obligatory dream-sequences or flashbacks of Liv Tylers annoyingly soppy Arwen standing by her mortal man, Aragorn (the grubby but delectable Viggo Mortensen).
One of the high spots of Peter Jacksons second Lord of the Rings film is Andy Serkiss remarkable Gollum, computer generated but modelled on the movements of the actor who based his vocal performance on øa cat coughing up furballsÓ. True, there are moments when this character looks like a cross between EastEnders Billy Mitchell and Yoda, but it is hard to imagine the interior duologues between the corrupted Gollum and his past self Sm¹agol any better done.
The other is the battle at Helms Deep. When the first reviews told me that this sequence lasted half an hour, it was a bit daunting. But the pace and tone were varied throughout, from the terrifying sound of the Uruk-hai army to the occasional joke: Gimli to Aragorn, øToss me ¨ but dont tell the Elf!Ó The Elf himself (Orlando Blooms elegant Legolas) comes skateboarding down a stone staircase on a shield, firing arrows as he glides. And there is a heart-stopping sortie at dawn with King Th¹oden crying øForth, Eorlingas!Ó and the White Rider on Shadowfax bringing reinforcements from Rohan.
Stirring stuff. And there is plenty more. When the gnarled Ents eventually take action against Saruman and break the dammed River Isen, the resultant cascade produces a spectacular cleansing of Isengard, drowning the fallen wizards mines and pits and forges in a hiss of steam and boiling water.
If you know the books as well as many in the cinema audience, you will have found some of the changes worked better than others. Perhaps it was OK to introduce a Warg attack that left Aragorn apparently missing in action but then his return repeats and therefore diminishes Gandalfs. The role of Pippin and Merry is much reduced ¨ something I dont regret, but it is very odd that they dont react at all to having seen the supposedly-dead Gandalf again. And the introduction of Haldir and a battalion of elf-archers at Helms deep must just have been so that Jackson could use all those tall slim extras one more time.
King Th¹oden (or Th¹oden King, as he is always called) seems to have been conflated with the character of Denethor, Boromir and Faramirs father, though we will need to wait till the third film to see by how much. The second books King of Rohan is not so doom-ridden and fey as Bernard Hill interprets him. Faramir himself has all sorts of fussy extra scenes with Sam and Frodo. And Sam is uniformly insulting to Gollum, not discriminating between his more and less trustworthy personae, characterised in the original as øSlinkerÓ and øStinkerÓ.
But for the most part, as with the first film, any weaknesses are due to flaws in Tolkiens own conception. The enemy are all demonised, in a way all too strikingly familiar at the present time. The Uruk-hai leader merely grunts and the tens of thousands of soldiers under his command, who roar and make animal noises, are as lacking in individuation as George Lucass Imperial stormtroopers. And why would anyone employ a counsellor called Wormtongue?
And suddenly, in the middle of Middle Earth, we are on the Discworld as Miranda Ottos excellent Eowyn asks Gimli about dwarf women and gets an answer from Aragorn which is straight from Terry Pratchett about both sexes having beards! Is this Jacksons øhomageÓ or a bit of straight plagiarism?
I was originally going to steal an idea from the Guardians TV critic who reviewed øDoctor DerondaÓ when two heavyweight drama series went head to head on the small screen this winter. But my øHarry Potter and the two Secret WizardsÓ would have been unfair to Chris Columbuss sequel. It is just terrible bad luck that HP has been so overshadowed in the cinema by Peter Jacksons labour of love. First they had their troll cast into the shade by New Lines version in the Mines of Moria, and this time they had Dobby, the House-elf, who becomes a piffling sub Jar-Jar Binks character compared with Andy Serkiss much stronger Gollum.
But Peter Jackson had no new human scene-stealer to rival Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart. The greatest accolade of all ¨ a French and Saunders Comic Relief special ¨ went this time to the boy wizard. And there is always the comfort that, after this years LOTR finale eclipses the film of The Prisoner of Azkaban, the next four Potter films will have an unopposed run ¨ unless New Line have started on øHis Dark MaterialsÓ by then of course.
If much of the above is gobbledegook to you, you could consult David Colberts The Magical Worlds of the Lord of the Rings (Puffin £5.99) or Clive Giffords quiz book, So you think you know the Lord of the Rings? (Hodder £4.99). Both are cheerfully and unrepentantly labelled as ønot approved by the Tolkien Estate or New Line CinemaÓ but are enjoyable for hard core fans and those who dont know their Orcs from their Bilbos.
Read Mary Hoffman's Film Reviews of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of The King
Visit The Lord of The Rings Website