Ovidiu Predescu's Weblog

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

I just got out from the premiere of The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers: Excellent!!

If you haven't read the books yet, do yourself a favor and read them before you see the movie! If you haven't seen the first movie, get the DVD and watch it first! This movie has no time for introductions, it's incredibly packed. Even after reading the books, it's still amazing to see how well the movie flows and how extraordinary well the tension from the book is captured in the movie.

The movie started just after midnight and ran for 3 full hours. Most of the scenes are just incredible, the actor's play, the scenery, costumes and all the armory and special effects are a real work of art. Gollum, a computer generated character is incredibly realistic. Watching the movie completely transports you in the world described by Tolkien in his books.

One thing I thought could have been done better were the Ents and Treebeard. Their human representation is something that I didn't quite like, I would have preferred to see them represented as real trees, with no legs.

This thing aside, it's the best movie I've seen this year! The special effects are by far the best. Check out this article about the making of the battle at Helm's Deep. The techniques used are truly innovative and the quality of the algorithm can be seen on the screen, it's just impressive.

In short, a must-see movie! I'm glad I went to see it at this late hour, it was well worth it. Now I need to get some sleep, I have a long day tomorrow :)