My three picks for Fantasy, Super-Heroes & Sci-Fi are Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Matrix (1999) and The Dark Knight (2008).
This was a very hard genre to pick favorites from, but I settled with these three. All three LOTR films were very enjoyable and competently made with Peter Jackson sparing no effort in staying true to both the spirit and written word of Tolkein’s three novels.
Of the three, I enjoyed The Two Towers the most. While Return of the King had the largest battle and action scenes, and Fellowship of the Ring the best character development, Towers for me had the best build-up from start to finish. There were scenes which were awe-inspiring that didn’t give me the same feeling in ROTK. For instance, when Warg are set upon the refugees traveling towards Helm’s Deep, there is a scene where Aragon turns his head for a glance of Éowyn before riding with the column of Rohirrim to face off the Warg. Their eyes connect in silent communication, set to Howard Shore’s stirring score. Really powerful stuff.
I thought the CG work in Towers was also more impressive than ROTK: segments of the Pelennor Fields Battle looked pretty fake and did not blend as seamlessly as the live shot footage. Some of the action sequences bordered on the cartoonish too – and I’m referring to Legolas’ Skateboard-an-Elephant scene – and the almost multiple endings of ROTK bordered on tedium. Shore’s music for the second movie was also more memorable than the other two: I really enjoyed the first number ‘Foundations of Stone’ which was heard in the opening scene when Gandalf fights the Balrog as they fall through earth, and also the recurring theme for the Kingdom of Rohan.
I didn’t catch The Matrix when it was first screened at the cinemas here. In fact, as I remember it, it was a sleeper hit with few persons expecting the film to turn into as big a hit as it was. I’ve blogged about the trilogy here before, and of the three films: the second was too convoluted, and the third was bland. The first balanced nicely story-telling and was able to present an abstracted perspective of the Matrix world which was comprehensible for viewers. I wonder how many persons really understood honestly what on earth the Architect was talking about in the second movie on first viewing. I sure didn’t. I had to check out the Internet message boards to figure that out.
The third movie is The Dark Knight from last year. One has to hand it to Chris Nolan for getting the look and tone of his revived Batman franchise on target, even if the two films took some creative liberties with the characters vis-a-vis the comic books. The story drew elements from several key Batman publications, including from Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One and Jeph Loeb’s The Long Halloween.
The film ran a little long for a super-hero movie, but the extended film time allowed for better story pacing and character development. Bruce Wayne / Bats remains the same as he was from start till end; it’s Harvey Dent’s rise as District Attorney and fall into Two Face that got the best character arc.
A lot of persons also heaped praise on the late Heath Ledger’s take of the Joker. Not meaning to sound disrespectful to the deceased, but I didn’t find Ledger’s Joker especially special. If an acting award had to go to one of the three leads in The Dark Knight, I would have given it to Aaron Eckhart for his role as Two Face.
Other favorite films of note in this genre include the Star Wars films (though the series was nearly wrecked by Jar Jar Binks and Ewoks in the first and last movies respectively), Spider-Man 2, and James Cameron’s Aliens 2.
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