Where to start........How about AWESOME

Rating: 10/10 (18 December 2002)

I love the books. Call me a geek, a loser, a freak, its been done before.(mostly by my mother) I love the world Tolkien created, that wonderous place called Middle Earth, and I love the characters that he sprung from its soil. I love everything about it. So when Jackson was making and then releasing FOTR I was excited, nervous, and a little apprehensive. How could anyone, even with Lucas graphics behind him every step of the way, how could anyone capture that magic the books cast upon most of us who read them? How could anyone do them justice? Well, Jackson did, and Two Towers comes close to eclipsing FOTR as a whole. First, it is darker, as the book is. There is more action, more fighting, more tense pressure put on by impending doom. Second, there is more comedy. These characters that seemed so distincted are now alive, real, human in this movie, where their love and their fears and their hates all come out in full view. Finally, there is Gollum. I have never seen such a character. You have to remind yourself that he is computer animated for one thing, but then the depth of the character, the depth of the emotions shown in its face, the eyes, the forhead, the body language, it is all just astounding. I could have watched Gollum all day and night. The charcater is so very interesting you do not mind being taken away from the action to seem him as he guides Frodo and Sam closer and closer to Mordor. Jackson does, as in the first one, take some liberties with the novels, not living up to every chapter in them, but the detail is so precise, the important moments so well done, the intensity raised to such a high level, that even the most ardent LOTR fans will not scowl at such changes.
Go see this movie. Go see it once, twice, three times if necessary. It is great cinema, it is great escapism, but most of all it is a great story that finally comes to life. And now, we wait for the Return of the King. Is anyone else excited?