Hell Mission Statement #39418 (If you want to be a cool geek, why don't you tattoo this MPAA# on your arm?): LOTR - The Two Towers
(To commemorate the 10-hour journey The Riv, Jimmy, and me participated in at the Maitreyaplex tonight, I thought I'd reprint my original thoughts in whole. Yes, we fought through hundreds of goofy looking kids decked out in renaissance fair garb to grab three coveted seats in the wayback. We did what very few could do. We weathered the trilogy that is the Rings in whole! I'm not going to sit for a week. Call it The Christmas Ornament Comeback Kid. He's hanging just slightly left of center. Ouch!)
"People all over the word, join chains…Start a Hate Train, Hate Train…"
I don't know. I was almost with this one until a couple of talking trees from McDonaldland Forest came lumbering on-screen like Hashimoto's disease and proceeded to devoured my enjoyment gland. These moss-infected Dutch Elms leaped inside my psyche, attacking and destroying any goodwill I was bound to throw towards this new Rings flick. For weeks now, all I've been hearing about is "The Battle of Helm's Deep." Forty minutes of undiluted grandeur they called it; the be-all, end-all of Warfare as depicted on film. I love Peter Jackson as a director. He does it dwarfy-style in interesting twists of originality. This skirmish sounded like something I could get behind. This sounded like something I wanted to see and cheer. If Jackson had accomplished a moment that could make me swell with excitement, that could make me feel the same way I felt when I first saw the end of Dead Alive, I would take back all those atrocious criticisms I punched upon the forehead of his first LOTR film. I would bow down and hail it as the masterpiece all those sh*t-f*ck fanfags claimed it to be.
More than you, I wanted this to be true…
Ah, but these films were not made for me, my mad as f*ck friend. Nope. I sat through 2 hours and 10 minutes of utter banality just to get to a battle that wasn't very exciting. Sure, it has its moments. And I was really into it at first. But then, seven minutes through all that grandiose fighting comes the biggest blunder your film has to offer. Right when I'm feeling the moment. Right when I'm ready to declare this an okay film worthy of its admission price, Peter pulls a stunt that still has me reeling with anger. Just as the Good Guys are overtaken by an acrimonious army of unstoppable black ants, and things start to roll all over the road with reckless abandon, Jackson cuts to those God Damn Talking Trees. He completely pulled me out of the moment. It might have been okay if these stupid looking Little Otik knock-offs were doing something exciting, but they're not. They're just standing there…
Talk…ing…reeeeaaaallllyyy…slo…oooow.
What the f*ck? I don't care about this. I wanted to finish up my dinner and join up with the winners. But the moment was ruined. When we returned to the fight, I couldn't care anymore. It was boring. It was like trying to watch porno after you've cum all over the TV set. I guess I can best equate it to fucking a watermelon and having your grandmother come in and grab your nuts in a vise-like grip, yelling, "That's just wrong!" Before you've had a chance to spit your seed. Sure, she leaves, but you can't enjoy the act in continuous harmony after she's gone away. To quote Mike Patton: Everything's ruined. The erection has wilted. Trying to gleam any bit of enjoyment off of it after the fact only has you remembering Grandmother and her cold, dead, wrinkly hands. This is exactly the emotional feeling Jackson has pulled off by interrupting the Battle of Helm's Deep with the dumbest looking Krofft rejects I've ever seen. There is no justice in this world! This just plain sucks.
Don't you get it? I sat in a seat, wrecking my spine and numbing my ass, to watch what was supposed to be the greatest moment at the multiplex this year, possibly ever, only to get raped. They tricked me. They duped me into seeing this sh*tty series a second time. The only thing that makes me happy, the only thing that makes me smile, is the fact that I took a free seat away from some drooling Tolkien-ite who only wishes they could have seen this stupid-ass film a week and a half early. Ha, and I didn't even want to be there. How's that for one upping all you dickheads who sent me over 102 hat-emails like a virus, straight done the vein and into my ATT account. You're all a bunch of line-waiting, sucka-bitchs. And I'm the man with the plan who makes you say, "God damn!" As in, "God, damn that uninteresting, insipid fool who dares spout bad words in the face of our holy bible!" Of course, I'm sure you'll all say it in a more polite, sophisticated way.
This movie suffers from the exact same suckitude that the first one did. As it stands right now, before end credits and any Director's Special Edition Cut of the film, The Two Towers is 3 hours long. For about 2 hours and 5 minutes of that time, we're watching people walk. That's all this is; people walking. This movie gives Brad Pitt's performance in Meet Joe Black a run for its money. The characters walk from here to there, then over that way, and down into a ravine and across a bog. Then there's 45 minutes of dialogue scenes where the people actually stop, stand still, and talk to each other for a few minutes at a time. Exciting. That means there's only 10 minutes of good film left. That means The Hot Chick, at 85 minutes long, is 8 times as entertaining as this diluted mess.
The worst part is; it just ends. Nothing; we get no cliffhanger, no remorse, no conclusion, just a bunch of dumb dicks staring off into the sunset. At least the first one left us with a little taste of things to come. It ended at the exact place this new film ends. None of the characters that got separated, sans Gandalf the Gay (Really, look at Gandalf's shoes in this movie. A gay man would have more sense then to wear a pair of ugly, white half-boots left over from the 80s), at the end of Fellowship are back together. This chapter in the saga seems completely pointless. It's nothing more than a bad hobbit dream snored out on a log. I'm pissed at having to waist my time sitting through it. Though certain plot points do play out, when all is said and done, it doesn't really feel like anything's been accomplished.
"Wait, that's not fair. Trees learned to fight against Evil. That reflects our own current times of War and hatred. Yes, those talking trees represent Canada." Huh? I don't know; that's what some dumb blonde was busy telling her boyfriend after it was over. I'm not buying it…
I mean, I'm still having problems with Frank Zappa's Grand Army of Sh*t-F*cks. These Uruk-Hais are some pretty shoddy beasts. We see a million go against an army of three hundred, and those three hundred pretty much hold their own. These goblins have been manufactured in a sweatshop by some ugly orc children who need to be smacked with a ruler. Check out their miss-sewn inseams. It's a wonder they didn't fall apart on their run towards that stone wall. They're nothing more than a bunch of easy-to-step-on Silverfish, crawling around the bathroom floor that is Helm's Deep. I mean, once you throw those crappy talking trees into the mix, and add in some trolls, there's no way these mean bastards are going to win the fight.
It really isn't fair to continually refer to Christopher Lee as Frank Zappa (even though he looks just like him with that fake, plastic nose); he is, after all, one of the only reasons to check out this boring stretch of some stodgy old man's imagination.
That being said, where is Ol' Creepy? He's only in the film for about 1 minute. I don't even recall him having any lines. This isn't right. The way Jackson has edited this thing, you're bound to forget Lee's even in it at all. The narrative is all over the place. We are continually flung from one character set-piece to the next at such a sluggish pace, once you get past five back stories, you forget that some of them even exist upon return. Merry, Pippin, and Treebeard (who I'm sure once guarded Witchie Poo's castle) are treated with whiplash-like abandon. Tens of minutes are given over to Gandalf, Frodo, some doped-up elves on a mountain, and those other three whores, yet our kidnapped midgets are given about two and a half minutes of screen time. They're treated like a picked-at scab that won't remove itself from the skin. And we spend so much time away from them, that when we return to their part of the plot, we'd rather take a nap. A well deserved nap.
My problem with both of these films is the running narrative. I've never read the books, but I keep hearing that they are literary masterpieces. F*ck, right. All Tolkien did was write about the longest Walkathon in history. I can just imagine all those creatures of the forest, trying to get to their jobs, who don't give a crap about "THE ONE RING," pissed as f*ck that they can't get past the road blocks. It takes ten days to watch one of these things; it must take a year and a half too read one. (I know, ha, ha; it would take me three years to read Dick and Jane because I'm stupid. You really beat me to the punch that time, you headless tweek.)
The Two Towers takes some of the fun away from Peter Jackson's unique visionary genius. The marvelous thing about the man's style is the creaky, cheap, old-fashioned look of his work. Here, he relies on too much CG Animation. This just doesn't have the spark of his other films. Fellowship had Jackson's signature branded deep in its flesh, but there are only moments here, and those moments are few and far between, that feel of Pete's oeuvre. This thing is too polished, too new looking. It just feels off. It's left me a bit sad.
That said…
The treatment of Gollum is flawlessly perfect, and if I had too champion just one thing about the film, it would be the use of this character. His mental breakdown is cinematic art at its finest. This creepy little fellow looks just like one of the old retarded men at the Home my brother works for. Sméagol, Schlimazel, this horrifying little bitch gives Dobby the House Elf a run for his money as most terrifying Computer Animated creature of the year. These two should go on the road together, or maybe join forces for a Christmas Special not unlike the Star Wars train wreck from 1978. I'd watch that under bed sheets with the lights on. I'd have to. These guys give me the heebie-jeebies; together, they're possible the scariest things I've ever seen in any movie. And I've seen Harry Knowles in The Faculty and Harvey Keitel naked.
After all my sh*t-talking, I must admit, I will gleefully go see Return of the King next year. Only because I know I'll be stealing a seat from one of you. And nothing would make me happier.
Ha, ha…
(Actually, I really liked this tremendous film. I'm just joshing you because I dig the hatemail. Fool.)
"I'm from Dentist Magazine. I don't need a ticket." Wrong, pal. It's off to the sh*t seats with you.
|
Top Stories
3 Comments
