An Abomination

Rating: 1/10 (4 January 2003)

Oh, merciful heavens, what a horrid film! I had serious problems with Fellowship, but I was able to overcome it eventually, and enjoy the movie on it's own terms. But this... this....! To begin with, this should have had a disclaimer that the film was "Inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's the Two Towers," so that geeks such as myself could've saved the $10.00 that I'll never see again, and preserved a fond childhood memory of spending time discovering a literary masterpiece. I thought I had been scarred by the first film's brilliant dialogue, e.g.,"Let's hunt some Orc!" (And many people who apparently love this film think George Lucas writes clunky lines!) but this entire installment left me wanting to pluck out my eyes in a vain effort to cleanse myself. Of course I see the need to condense a long novel to run within an alloted time, but that's not what happened here, they apparently felt that they could improve upon something that was already nearly perfect. That was mistake number one. Mistake number two was devoting a good portion of the film to Liv Tyler, for reasons unkown to me, since nowhere does her character appear in the book. Other gripes: Turning the land of Rohan into a shanty hippie commune. Then feeling the need to show some hippie kids fleeing, in order to stir up some sympathy in the audience, is my only guess. Suddenly finding myself in the middle wondering if the movie had stopped, and I was now watching a New Age music video (see Liv Tyler above), Enya, Enigma, something like that. Half expecting Gandalf to turn into Max Von Sydow when King Theoden is "possessed" by Saruman, and begin bellowing, "The power of Christ compels you!" Aragorn dying, to be healed by Arwen (more Liv Tyler), and then awakened when the horsey starts kissing him. Then there's the time that... Ugh! I give up! It's a shame too, because I've really liked Peter Jackson's work before this. I just can't fathom his need to turn Tolkien's work into his own. Sheesh, even Kubrick wasn't this bad!