Lord of the rings 2 takes 2002
Jan 02, 2003
The year 2002 for cinema in Uganda largely ended the way it begun, with the film, The Lord of the Rings, breaking box office records.
By Kalungi Kabuye
The year 2002 for cinema in Uganda largely ended the way it begun, with the film, The Lord of the Rings, breaking box office records.
In January, the first of the trilogy, Fellowship of the Ring, showed, and as the year ended its sequel, The Two Towers, reigned supreme.
2002 was a lop-sided year for films the world over in that the biggest ones came towards the end of the year, unlike other years when the big films are launched during the American summer.
Thus, you found that two of the biggest sequels of all time - Harry Potter: The Chamber of Secrets and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, were released within three weeks of each other, and are still battling it out at the box office.
This year saw more than 50 new movies showing in cinemas around Kampala. Some were blockbusters that pulled in the crowds, some just an opportunity to take a date out, others were those we stayed away from.
We watched Oscar winning films, but due to distribution problems, missed out on one of the largest films of 2002 – Spiderman.
After Fellowship of the Rings awed viewers with one of the best screen adaptations of a classic book, we watched Denzel Washington put forward what was to turn out to be the second Oscar Award for a black actor in a leading role for the film Training Day, in which he acted a corrupt policeman.
Behind Enemy Lines was one of those films you used as an excuse to take someone out, while the star-studded (Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, George Clooney) Oceans Eleven quietly passed on.
Captain Corelli’s Mandarin was one of the worst films that Nicholas Cage has ever acted in, and we wisely stayed away from it.
Then came James Russell in A Beautiful Mind, an astounding acting effort that should have won him the Oscar for Best Actor if only Denzel Washington was not there.
Domestic Disturbance, starring John Travolta as a nice guy that loses his wife to a conman, and Drew Barrymore’s Riding In cars with Boys also passed quietly, as did Collateral Damage, which reinforced our view that Arnold Schwarzeneger can not act to save his life.
Bruce Willis’ Bandits was another one of those ‘I have a date’ films, as was I Am Sam, although it was arguably one of Sean Penn’s best efforts.
Denzel Washington returned in the tear-jerker John Q, about a man who takes over a hospital so his son can have a life-saving operation, because he does not have the money.
Black Hawk Down, about the USA’s failed peace-keeping mission in Somalia, and the poignant We Were Soldiers brought the realities of war home to us.
The South African comedy Mr. Bones lightened our hearts a bit, but we were really waiting for Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, the first of the big sequels of the year.
Wesley Snipes also came back in Blade II, but passed by quietly. Panic Room was another ‘date’ movie, but then our own Mira Nair brought the riotous ebullience of a Punjabi wedding in the film Monsoon Wedding - ‘The guests came, but so did the rains’.
Minority Report, Spielberg’s futuristic film where murderers are arrested before they can actually kill somebody, impressed a whole lot of people, before Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones came back to keep the earth safe from aliens in Men in Black II.
Chris Rock came in and told us it was okay to laugh at terrorism in Bad Company, and Murder by Numbers, starring Sandra Bullock, tried to explain why rich, bored, white kids commit murder - for the fun of it.
Ben Affleck, now famous for becoming Jennifer Lopez’s third husband in three years, brought the reality of terrorism in Sum of All Fears, an adaptation of the book by Tom Clancy. Then Beyonce Knowles showed us there is more to her than just singing in Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Vin Diesel tried to out do James Bond in XXX, but did not quiet succeed, same as Cameron Diaz tried to revisit There is Something about Mary in The Sweetest Thing, but failed.
Matt Damon was Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity, based on Robert Ludlum’s book that almost every schoolchild in Uganda has read.
Mel Gibson was next in Signs, a film about Aliens that was more of a shocker than a horror.
Jennifer Lopez’ Enough hardly made an impact on the global scene, but here in Uganda many women went to see how an abused wife gets back at the man when she learns tae-kwon-do.
The Mr. Deeds remake, although it brought some redemption to Adam Sandler as an actor, was another ‘date’ movie, and only served to mark time before the big ones got here.
So in came Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a somehow darker and scarier version of the boy wizard apprentice series.
That left The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers riding high at the end of the year. Bigger and better than the first one, it was still drawing in crowds at Cineplex, and the word internationally was that it gained the $200m landmark in just 12 days. That was the year 2002 in films, now we are just waiting for Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry in the 20th James Bond film titled Die Another Day which was supposed to have premiered this weekend, but it did not. Instead, Cineplex is to bring Bend It Like Beckham.
The year 2002 for cinema in Uganda largely ended the way it begun, with the film, The Lord of the Rings, breaking box office records.
In January, the first of the trilogy, Fellowship of the Ring, showed, and as the year ended its sequel, The Two Towers, reigned supreme.
2002 was a lop-sided year for films the world over in that the biggest ones came towards the end of the year, unlike other years when the big films are launched during the American summer.
Thus, you found that two of the biggest sequels of all time - Harry Potter: The Chamber of Secrets and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, were released within three weeks of each other, and are still battling it out at the box office.
This year saw more than 50 new movies showing in cinemas around Kampala. Some were blockbusters that pulled in the crowds, some just an opportunity to take a date out, others were those we stayed away from.
We watched Oscar winning films, but due to distribution problems, missed out on one of the largest films of 2002 – Spiderman.
After Fellowship of the Rings awed viewers with one of the best screen adaptations of a classic book, we watched Denzel Washington put forward what was to turn out to be the second Oscar Award for a black actor in a leading role for the film Training Day, in which he acted a corrupt policeman.
Behind Enemy Lines was one of those films you used as an excuse to take someone out, while the star-studded (Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, George Clooney) Oceans Eleven quietly passed on.
Captain Corelli’s Mandarin was one of the worst films that Nicholas Cage has ever acted in, and we wisely stayed away from it.
Then came James Russell in A Beautiful Mind, an astounding acting effort that should have won him the Oscar for Best Actor if only Denzel Washington was not there.
Domestic Disturbance, starring John Travolta as a nice guy that loses his wife to a conman, and Drew Barrymore’s Riding In cars with Boys also passed quietly, as did Collateral Damage, which reinforced our view that Arnold Schwarzeneger can not act to save his life.
Bruce Willis’ Bandits was another one of those ‘I have a date’ films, as was I Am Sam, although it was arguably one of Sean Penn’s best efforts.
Denzel Washington returned in the tear-jerker John Q, about a man who takes over a hospital so his son can have a life-saving operation, because he does not have the money.
Black Hawk Down, about the USA’s failed peace-keeping mission in Somalia, and the poignant We Were Soldiers brought the realities of war home to us.
The South African comedy Mr. Bones lightened our hearts a bit, but we were really waiting for Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, the first of the big sequels of the year.
Wesley Snipes also came back in Blade II, but passed by quietly. Panic Room was another ‘date’ movie, but then our own Mira Nair brought the riotous ebullience of a Punjabi wedding in the film Monsoon Wedding - ‘The guests came, but so did the rains’.
Minority Report, Spielberg’s futuristic film where murderers are arrested before they can actually kill somebody, impressed a whole lot of people, before Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones came back to keep the earth safe from aliens in Men in Black II.
Chris Rock came in and told us it was okay to laugh at terrorism in Bad Company, and Murder by Numbers, starring Sandra Bullock, tried to explain why rich, bored, white kids commit murder - for the fun of it.
Ben Affleck, now famous for becoming Jennifer Lopez’s third husband in three years, brought the reality of terrorism in Sum of All Fears, an adaptation of the book by Tom Clancy. Then Beyonce Knowles showed us there is more to her than just singing in Austin Powers in Goldmember.
Vin Diesel tried to out do James Bond in XXX, but did not quiet succeed, same as Cameron Diaz tried to revisit There is Something about Mary in The Sweetest Thing, but failed.
Matt Damon was Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity, based on Robert Ludlum’s book that almost every schoolchild in Uganda has read.
Mel Gibson was next in Signs, a film about Aliens that was more of a shocker than a horror.
Jennifer Lopez’ Enough hardly made an impact on the global scene, but here in Uganda many women went to see how an abused wife gets back at the man when she learns tae-kwon-do.
The Mr. Deeds remake, although it brought some redemption to Adam Sandler as an actor, was another ‘date’ movie, and only served to mark time before the big ones got here.
So in came Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a somehow darker and scarier version of the boy wizard apprentice series.
That left The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers riding high at the end of the year. Bigger and better than the first one, it was still drawing in crowds at Cineplex, and the word internationally was that it gained the $200m landmark in just 12 days. That was the year 2002 in films, now we are just waiting for Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry in the 20th James Bond film titled Die Another Day which was supposed to have premiered this weekend, but it did not. Instead, Cineplex is to bring Bend It Like Beckham.