By Guy Wheatley
The Texarkana Gazette

The saga continues.  As with the first movie, Tolkien fans will have mixed feelings. In broad strokes, the film again follows the book. The details, however, are very different. It seems strange that in a three-hour movie, the pace is forced. Tolkien readers will feel that events are rushed, coming too quickly together.
Sam and Frodo  (Sean Astin and Elijah Wood) are separated from the other members of  the fellowship. The book and the movie both take them to Moridor. The book takes them further, past a danger only foreshadowed in the movie. Also the book is in two separate parts, coming to Sam and Frodo only after finishing with the rest of the fellowship. Following the book format, the movie would give us two films, back to back. The concurrent stories keep the tales in single movie.
The decision by Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema to film all three movies at once gives us an unparalleled continuity. In the story timeline, only a few days have passed since the last film. It is refreshing to see actors who havenít aged a couple of years in the interval. We really do pick up right where we left off.
Production designer Grant Major again does an outstanding job. The first film gave us sets that while grand, where non-the-less claustrophobic. One of the largest set in the last film was the caves of Moria. This was a dark, foreboding place where danger was close, and there was little room to run.
The Two Towers opens with a breath taking vista, the camera sweeping over ruggedly beautiful snow capped peaks. Most of this film is shot on open plains. The scenery alone is worth the price of admission.
Computer graphic imaging steps up to a new level in this film. One major character Gollum (Andy Serkis) is done as a CGI character. Serkis provides more than the voice for his character. He wears a motion capture suite and gives Gollum most of his body movement. While the facial movement is rendered by computer artists it is based on Serkisí performance. The result, while not seamless, is effective. Gollum is being pulled in two directions. He is the physical demonstration of the ringís evil.
We discover that he was once a Hobbit like creature named Smeagol. Smeagol responds to
Frodoís kindness. He tries to reassert himself and suppress the Gollum side of his personality. Frodo is desperate to believe that he can save Smeagol. He needs Smeagolís salvation as a sign that he can survive the rings growing influence on himself.
The book portrays two major battles between Sauramanís forces and men. The movie reduces it to a single battle, the battle of Helmnís Deep. Again, computer-imaging reaches new levels portraying the battles. The orcs bring a force 10,000 strong to Helms Deep. Rather than hire and costume 10,000 extras, the orc army is filled digitally. While digital extras are nothing new, the method used to animate them in this film is. The usual technique for animating large crowds is to manually animate several digital actors, then duplicate them. Varying the speed and size of each duplicate helps reduce the artificial effect, but there are limitations with this technique. Scenes must be brief enough that the human eye, which is excellent at detecting patterns, doesnít have a chance to pick up the repetition.
Weta Digital, based in New Zealand, developed proprietary crowd behavioral simulation software dubbed Massive. The animated characters are autonomous, intelligent agents. Each digital character responds to itís environment making itís own decisions about how to fight.
This allows longer shots, reducing distracting jumps from scene to scene. There is a feeling of momentum and inertia, usually missing in computer animated crowds. The audience has time for anticipation to build as the armies rush toward each other.
The film also builds anticipation for the third and final film in the trilogy. A year is too long to wait.

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