Welcome back to Middle Earth

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2003)

The Two Towers starts off right where The Fellowship of the Ring ends, with an amazing flashback of Gandalf fighting the huge and terrifying Balrog. This scene gave me the same "Wow" feelings as the prologe in FOTR, and I just love it; you are literally *thrown* into the action with spectacular special effects that will make your jaw drop. Speaking of that, throughout the movie this happend several times for me. I thought I had seen it all (amazing special effects), but TTT brought even more memorable moments. Gandalf vs. Balrog, Wargs attack, Oliphaunts, Helm's Deep, The Ents etc. And let's not forget about Gollum.
Gollum, what can I say, looked *exactly* as I had imagined him as, and behaved *exactly* the same. Andy Serkis has created movie history with his fine performance as Gollum, which was also digitally made with CGI. Treebeard, also he a CGI creation, looked really good.
Acting was good, great performances from the "new" addition to the cast, and the cinematography was as beautiful and well-done as FOTR.
Now, the only problems I had, was some of the major changes made to the plot (Faramir & Osgiliath for example), and some of the editing. Sometimes it felt a little bit choppy (following three groups/stories), and sometimes it slowed down the movie, (Arwen and Elrond scenes), but I guess Peter Jackson had no choice.
And to compare FOTR with TTT is impossible, because there are two very different movies, both in mood and speed. However, I think TTT is a great movie and a worthy sequel to my favorite movie of all time, FOTR.

TTT - 9/10 !