Jackson continues to thrive!

Rating: 10/10 (27 January 2003)

Peter Jackson's "The Two Towers" wastes very little time getting his audience awe stricken with just the opening scene! Jackson brings to life another part of the Lord of the Rings saga that was only mentioned in the books (there are some things that only can be achieved in movie-making, aka the imprisonment of Gandalf in FOTR).
Jackson continues to thrive in his recreation of Middle Earth... Rohan, Fanghorn and Helm's Deep seem to be pulled from the pages of Tolkien with nearly flawless effort, and the casting being equally yet hauntingly perfect. Brad Dourif "is" Wormtongue, and Miranda Otto and Bernard Hill are also stunningly believable as Eowyn and Theoden King.
Ian McKellen once again stands out, taking the role of Gandalf to another level, accompanied with outstanding performances by Viggo Mortensen, Elijah Wood, Sean Austin, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, etc...I particularly enjoyed the character development of John Rhys-Davies's character Gimli (though I see some "critics" of the film did not).
The CGI characters like Gollem, Treebeard and the ents were also extremely believable to the point you forget that they were animations. Andy Serkis (the voice of Gollem) did a fantastic job portraying Smeagol's duality.
Without saying too much, the battle for Helm's Deep must be seen to believe!
There are a lot of "critics" or "Tolkien Purists" downplaying these films. I, myself have read the books on 4 occasions and still believe whole-heartily that Jackson's interpretation of Tolkien is as close as we're ever gonna get. Simply putting it, there are some things better in the book, yet (to the horror of the "purists") there are some things better in the movies! I personally didn't see eye to eye with everything Jackson did, however I'll save my criticizing for the thousands of horrible films out there that lack the same passion Jackson has put into these films.
10/10 ...and if I could, I'd give it an 11!("these go to 11"- SPINAL TAP)