Reviews

I wasn't planning on going to see T3. I figured it would be a brain-dead, explosion-ridden summer flick. It wasn't. Granted, there were a (very) few moments where I wanted to mute the excessive explosions, and many more moments when I wanted to shout at the protagonists "Don't just stand there! Run!," but other parts make up for it. The unexpected and well-timed humor brought theater-filling laughs from the crowd. The movie managed to avoid the cliched ending one might expect and earned a deserved applause for that. All in all, worth seeing.

It's a movie that builds toward something. It's well acted. It has a great film noir quality about it. But it is incredibly slow getting anywhere and were are times when I had to force myself to keep watching. Not a movie to watch when you're tired or in the mood for anything even resembling action.

I loved most of this film. The problem is, for every 3 minutes I loved, there was a minute I hated. One of the strengths of "Fellowship" was that it while it stayed true to the spirit of the book, it made some very smart choices about which scenes to delete or change, which translated into a better movie. "Two Towers" fails to live up to its predecessor in this respect. Many of its changes didn't add anything to the story and, worse yet, took something away from it.

Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I expected a lot more. Perhaps the movie itself isn't awful, but it seemed as such to me because it was such a big let down. There was all this hype about a great, funny, quirky French film that was sweeping the nation, and so that's what I expected it to be. In reality, it was painfully formulaic in places and not nearly so delightfully quirky as, say for example, making your bed while listening to music from The Matrix. It was a let down, and not a particularly engaging movie. I would never, never watch it again.

It really does have it all: Action, masked men, a farm boy true, love, adventure, pirates, sword fighting, true love, torture, betrayal, intrigue and true love. Did I mention the true love? And as if that weren't enough, it's wonderfully self-conscious through it's grandfather/grandson framework.

The first thing to love about this movie is how good it is at being a historical drama. It opens by telling you what has come before, and the ending is made even more poignant (if that is possible) by knowing what will come after. In between, it stays far more authentic than many "historical" movies ever bother to with little apparent effort. This ease is due not only to the gripping bit of history being told, but to the superb acting by all the major players.

While none of the performances are bad, or even mediocre, some bits manage to shine even brighter. Jane Lapotaire as Princess Mary is wonderfully haunted by longing and desperation behind the strong, poised front. Patrick Stewart shows us ever so briefly that his Henry Grey is not only a cold-hearted conspirator and dominating patriarch, but a father who desperate needs to make things right for his little girl. Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes play superbly off each other as Lady Jane Grey and Guilford Dudley, bringing out nuances in each other's performance that cement the core of this beautiful story.