Great Visuals, disappointing story changes

Rating: Null/10 (26 December 2002)

While marveling at the astounding visuals presented in "The Two Towers", I could not help but be somewhat chagrined at the alterations to the original story line. Having been a Tolkien fan since the mid 1960s, and having read all of his writings, I could not but watch the movie with the hope of seeing a screen rendition to the original book. In the first film, "The Fellowship of the Ring", I was disappointed with the story changes, but saw the wisdom of them in light of the mission of making a movie of reasonable length which would also appeal to those unfamiliar with the original writings. In the second installment, "The Two Towers", I expected some abridgement of the story and the occasional addition or alteration for cinematic necessity. However, what I did in fact see, were some wholesale alterations to the story that did not seem to serve any cinematic purpose. The change in the story concerning the actions of the Ents was no shorter or clearer than a true rendering of the story would have been. The same was true with the banishment of Eomer, the relationship between Aragorn and Eowyn and the encounter between Frodo and Faramir (especially Faramir's kidnapping of Frodo to Osgiliath and the ridiculous encounter between Frodo and the flying Ringwraith there). Yes, the evil influence of the ring may have been somewhat more emphatic with the story changes, but this is more than offset by the loss of emphasis on Frodo's role in the story. If you are a fan of Tolkien's vision, I think that you should still go see the movie; changes notwithstanding. It is a visual masterpiece, especially the CGI Gollum. However, I think that it was Roger Ebert (in his review in the "Chicago Sun Times") who stated things best: "To do what he (Peter Jackson) has done in this film must have been awesomely difficult, and he deserves applause, but to remain true to Tolkien would have been more difficult, and braver."