Great Visualisation...Bad Ending

Rating: Null/10 (5 August 2003)

****Spoilers**** The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers continues where the first one left off, Frodo and Sam headed east through Emyn Muil towards Mordor to destroy the Ring while Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli follow the trail of the Uruk-hais who have capture Merry and Pippin, heading West through the vast Plains and Rohan. Along the way, they are reunited with Gandalf, who then takes them towards Edoras, where Theoden King lives. From there, Gandalf leaves to find Eomer while the other three travel with the city towards Helms Deep, where an epic battle is going to take place. While all this happens in the West, Frodo and Sam meet with Gollum, who tries to steal the Ring from them in the night. He promises to lead them towards the Black Gates and into Mordor himself, all the while, unbeknownst to the two hobbits, is battling with himself to gain control (Smeagol over Gollum, Gollum over Smeagol). When they cannot enter through the Black Gates, Smeagol/Gollum leads them another way in but the two hobbits are soon taken by Faramir, a ranger of Gondor and the deceased Boromir's brother. Near the end of the movie, they are taken to Osgiliath where Nazgul are attacking. In the end, Faramir does let them continue back towards Mordor alone instead of taking them to Minas Tirith, as was planned.
I think it was a very good visual of the second installment of this epic trilogy written by the great J.R.R Tolkien, which is supposed to have been the first fantasy novel which most things are faintly based on. Although the ending was...far from where it really was, it was great all-around, succeeding in a breath-taking visualisation not yet seen in any fantasy film and greatly matching the success of the first installment, The Fellowship of the Ring. Out of all of the movie, I was far from pleased with the endings of both the West and East journeys, that are separated into two parts in the book, which ended half way through the original two parts. Altogether though, even with the bad ending, it was very well made and deserves as high a praise from fans as the first installment did.