The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The second film of the trilogy, starting from the middle. The company has broken up. Frodo and Sam walk on alone, two hobbits have been taken, and the remaining three are chasing them. A third person joins Frodo's line. Gollum had been following them; he is caught and becomes the guide. From there the film moves in three directions and puts a siege at its centre. The Rohan line goes to war. The king gets his mind back, the people withdraw to Helm's Deep, and a defence begins that lasts all night. The line with the trees is the slowest and hits hardest at the end. What the narrative is interested in is not war but division: Gollum talks to himself, and the best scene in the film is not an argument between two people but between two halves of one. Gollum was produced entirely from an actor's movement. Andy Serkis had been hired for the voice alone; once his work on set was seen, the whole character was given to him, and that decision shaped the next twenty years of digital characters. The Helm's Deep section was shot at night over months. Constant rain, constant cold, and the set itself built at full scale. Faramir is written differently from the book, and that remains the trilogy's most argued-over adaptation decision. Christopher Lee's Saruman is the film's quiet villain; the character almost never raises his voice. Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Andy Serkis, Bernard Hill and Brad Dourif are in the cast. Peter Jackson directed. Who it is for: anyone who has seen the first film. Who it is not for: anyone starting here; the film neither opens nor closes, it stands in the middle.