Good, but not Great

Rating: 6/10 (19 December 2003)

Clearly, the Lord of the Rings fanatics are taking over ImDb. They have managed to voted "The Two Towers" into the number 4 spot on the all-time list. Ridiculous. Certainly, "Two Towers" is a good movie, but it has several problems that prevent it from attaining the greatness of its predecessor, "Fellowship of the Ring".
First, all those useless, lingering shots of Liv Tyler make me conclude that Peter Jackson, as great a job as he has done on the series, could not resist the Michael Bay-like tendency to use his film as a platform for admiring the goddess-like qualities of some members of the fairer sex. Second, the slow-motion, close-up shots of the women and children cowering in the shelter of helms' deep, anticipating a gory fate. I certainly understand their fear, but all of these sequences seem manipulative and heavy handed. Frankly, I was plenty worried about the fates of the defenders without having to be reminded (repeatedly) by Mr. Jackson that there were mothers and children present, too. Finally, in "Fellowship", Mr. Jackson had a little less confidence in the patience of his audience, and he was therefore much more economical in his translation of Tolkien's narrative onto the screen. In "Two Towers", he throws economy out the window, and the film suffers as a result. When your film exceeds three hours AND you find yourself cutting in numerous slow-motion sequences, a little self-examination is in order. I am not calling for elimination of crucial elements of Tolkien's story, but successful adaptation from page to screen requires some clever narrative devices to truncate long passages into digestible visual material. In this regard, "Two Towers" is far inferior to "Fellowship". I hope that Jackson, in "Return of the King", shows more self-control.
Still, Mr. Jackson is on the verge of one of the most extraordinary achievements in film history. He deserves all of his success.