Artykuł pochodzi z pisma "Guardian"

Peter Jackson's The Two Towers makes no concession to those unacquainted with the first part of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, other than to reprise the wizard Gandalf's spectacular fall into the pit of Khazad-dûm. He expects us to know, at least in general terms, the tale of some decent folk in Middle-Earth embarking on a dangerous quest to place the One Ring beyond reach of its wicked creator by consigning it to the Fire of Doom in the process and to defeat the evil schemes of the megalomaniac wizard Saruman (the commanding Christopher Lee).
So from the start the chief heroic characters of the first part are split into three separate groups that will not meet again in this episode. This leads to occasional confusion but produces pace and variety. In the first strand, the leading hobbit Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and his devoted squire Sam (Sean Astin) meet the treacherous hominoid Gollum (one of the influences presumably for Dobby in Harry Potter), who becomes their guide. In the second, the warrior Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen looking, sounding and swashbuckling like Errol Flynn), the pawky Scottish dwarf Gimli and the Elf archer Legolas, ride to the defence of the embattled King Theoden (Bernard Hill). The third strand features the two lesser hobbits, Pippin and Merry, who are protected by Treebeard, a splendid walking tree out of Arthur Rackham who gets a good laugh from the line 'What is a hobbit?' Treebeard commands a company of fellow giant trees and, in addition to delivering a discreet eco-message about deforestation (another of Saruman's sins), they prove formidable fighters. Discovering that their bite is worse than their bark, Pippin and Merry lead their arboreal allies in a Dunsinane-style assault against the evil empire.
There is no girl in any of these three groups and the film finds little work for its heroines. (This is also the case in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, where Hermione is also marginalised.) Certainly there is nothing like the elf maiden Arwen's marvellous equestrian rescue of Frodo, a major highlight of the earlier picture. Their job is to flee with the children and the old folk. When the beautiful aristocratic Eowyn (Miranda Otto) wants to take up arms she is upbraided by her uncle, King Theoden, who believes that the fighting should be left to the men. And God knows there is plenty of it. This film packs enough battles into three hours to keep the residents of Valhalla talking for a year. Even the peaceful elf community decides to join the humans in the war against the totalitarian Sauron, apparently abandoning their old separatist slogan 'We Our Elves'.
Five-digit hordes, mostly digitally created, go into battle every couple of minutes, with losses that even on the Western Front (JRR Tolkien had first-hand knowledge as an infantry officer) would have been extreme. The battles and sieges are conducted with the ferocity of the Crusades, Agincourt and Stalingrad and they are led up to and orchestrated in a manner that recalls the great movie epics of Fritz Lang and Sergei Eisenstein. These sequences are breathtaking, as indeed is much of a beautifully designed and photographed film that draws for its visual style on Caspar David Friedrich, the Pre-Raphaelites, Art Nouveau illustrations for children's books and the apocalyptic biblical landscapes (all flaming mountains, lightning and floods) of the Victorian visionary John Martin. The New Zealand settings have a rugged, primeval grandeur, though there are too many swooping helicopter shots over the landscape.
Setting the second Harry Potter film beside this second Tolkien confirms with even greater clarity the difference detected between the two enterprises when the first movies appeared together a year ago. Though both are eclectic in their mythic and literary sources, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is to The Two Towers what glossy pantomime versions of Robinson Crusoe and Aladdin are to the Daniel Defoe novel and the Arabian Nights stories. These Tolkien films have a weight and seriousness that very few sword-and-sorcery pictures of the past 30-odd years have attained. (John Boorman's Excalibur is the most obvious exception and The Lord of the Rings was a cherished project of his that he was unable to get off the ground in the early Seventies.)
The Two Towers can even stand the self-referential speech at the end by brave, honest hobbit Sam, about the force of mythic tales of good against evil, in which he wonders whether he would be worthy of figuring in such a saga himself.
There is, along the way, as you might expect from a legendary tale, much topical resonance with references both fortuitous (two towers under attack) and expected (the belief that evil is abroad and that there are things worth fighting for) to current concerns. The movie, with narrative justification and commercial canniness, concludes with a cliffhanger that aims to have us sitting in the same seats a year hence to see how it all turns out in the concluding episode, The Return of the King. This is likely to be happier, more decisive and infinitely more satisfying than anything that will happen to our world in the next 12 months.


to abandon - to cease from maintaining, practicing, or using; to withdraw from often in the face of danger or encroachment, porzucić, opuścić

ally - sprzymierzeniec

arboreal - drzewny

archer - łucznik

assault - a military attack usually involving direct combat with enemy forces, atak, szturm, natarcie

canniness - cleverness, spryt, obrotność

cliffhanger - a contest whose outcome is in doubt up to the very end; broadly : a suspenseful situation,sytuacja pełna napięcia, dramatyczna sytuacja

to consign - to commit especially to a final destination or fate, rzucić na pastwę, skazać

decent folk - przyzwoity, porządny lud

to defeat - pokonać

dwarf - krasnolud

embark on - to make a start, rozpocząć

equestrian - konny

ferocity - extreme fierceness and unrestrained violence and brutality, zapał wojenny, dzikość, srogość, okrucieństwo

fortuitous - occurring by chance, przypadkowy

giant - wielki, gigantyczny

glossy - attractive in an artificially opulent, sophisticated, or smoothly captivating manner, pełęn blichtru

grandeur - wspaniałość, wielkość, dostojeństwo

highlight - something (as an event or detail) that is of major significance or special interest, najważniejszy punkt programu
hominoid - any of a superfamily (Hominoidea) of primates , należący do naczelnych, człekokształtny

in general terms - ogólnie, móiąc ogólnie

infantry - a branch of an army composed of soldiers trained, armed, and equipped to fight on foot, piechota

infinitely - nieskończenie

maiden - an unmarried girl or woman, panna

pawky - artfully shrewd , canny, (staroświeckie) sprytny, przemyślny

presumably - przypuszczalnie, prawdopodobnie

primeval - ancient, primitive, pierwotny, pradawny, prastary

quest - a chivalrous enterprise in medieval romance usually involving an adventurous journey, wyprawa

to reprise - to repeat the performance of , recapitulate, powrórzyć, zrekapitulować

rugged - austere, stern, severe, surowy, dziki

siege - a military blockade of a city or fortified place to compel it to surrender , oblężenie

sorcery - magic, magia

to split (into) - rozdzilić się (między)

squire - a shield bearer or armor bearer of a knight; a male attendant especially on a great personage, giermek, towarzysz

strand - nić, wątek

to swashbuckle - być awanturnikiem

to swoop - obniżać gwałtownie lot, nurkować, pikować

treacherous - zdradziecki, zdradliwy, niebezpieczny, skrytobójczy

unacquainted with - niezaznajomiony z, to be acquainted with sb or sth - znać kogoś lub coś, być zaznajomionym z

to upbraid - to criticize severely; find fault with; to reproach severely; scold vehemently , ganić, wymawiać, strofować

warrior - wojownik

wicked - zły, okrutny

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