Visually splendid but otherwise disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (19 January 2003)

Alas, my opinion of The Two Towers is no different from that of The Fellowship of the Ring. In my review of that film I said that people who see it because they want to see Middle-Earth on the screen will be thrilled, and the same is true here: Tolkien's visual world has been brought triumphantly to life in Peter Jackson's films. Rivendell, Isengard, Orthanc, Rohan, Osgiliad, Helm's Deep, Fangorn Forest, the Dead Marshes, Mordor, all of it looks spectacular. Here are hobbits, wizards, Rangers, men, elves, dwarfs, Half-Elven, Ents, Ringwraiths, orcs, Gollum (a fully digital character, à la Jar Jar Binks), even Sauron's Eye. The battle scenes are as exciting as any in recent films. Everything is drenched in generic medieval atmosphere, including lots of tangled, matted, filthy hair hanging down in people's faces. That's one good thing about this movie: It doesn't look like a sanitized, Errol-Flynn-as-Robin Hood romp; there is more than enough dirt to go around. (No chamber pots or outhouses, though, but then, there weren't any in the books, either.)
It goes without saying that the film cannot be the book, and must be judged on its own merits. And in order to compress the book into a 3-hour film, compromises were, of course, inevitable. Still, those who hope for more than pretty pictures may well be disappointed. I didn't mind the elimination of whole sections featuring characters that don't advance the plot. However, if you are like me, and what you treasure is the elaborately wrought, intricately detailed story beneath the visual effects, you will find little of it here. The outline of the plot has been preserved, as how could it not. But gone is the leisurely, majestic journey of the books; this is a race, a breakneck dash through a fever dream. Those who delight in Tolkien's rich, textured, muscular dialogue will find little of it here; what the FOUR, count em, four screenwriters have replaced it with is flaccid, bland, and banal. What little of Tolkien's original dialogue remains has been moved around and chopped up so that it has lost most or all of its power. The great sweep and turning of the seasons, so much a part of Tolkien's story, is barely touched here, and then only by the scenery. Whole sequences have been rearranged or transposed, or entirely new ones invented, for no reason that I can fathom; I cannot see where the originals would have been less cinematically successful. Many scenes are embellished and baroque where Tolkien's simple and direct treatment was much more effective. Wonderful scenes of dialogue have been trimmed to almost nothing.
About 20 years ago, the BBC produced a 12-hour radio serial of The Lord of the Rings. I was curious how these films would compare to it. It turns out that the radio version still conveys the true feel of Tolkien's story better than this attempt. It is also interesting to note that 12 hours of radio works out to 4 hours per volume, or only about an hour longer than the filmed LOTR is to be per film; yet the radio series manages to achieve a much more leisurely and measured pace, much more like the book. It is still the best dramatization.