Not as true to the book as the first film

Rating: 9/10 (23 December 2002)

While certainly a very good movie, visually appealing, dramatic and awe inspiring in many ways, The Two Towers is not as good as The Fellowship of the Ring for many of the same reasons FOTR could have been better.
Peter Jackson takes some liberties with the characters here that weren't taken in the first film. Faramir, while ably portrayed, doesn't seem quite right. And the scene in which Aragorn falls into a coma and dreams about Arwen (conveniently providing a heavy kiss romance scene) is a good scene, but also wasn't a part of the original story.
All these are acceptable, as many of them make the film better than it would otherwise be, however, there are two glaring omissions, both involving orcs.
The scenes which involve Merry and Pippin being held captive by the two different bands of orcs, and fought over by Grishnak and the Uruk-hai leader (I forget his name). Some of the arguments ans conversations here were among the best in the book and are missed.
Also, as has been mentioned by other here, the orcs, while certainly vile, frightening and mean looking, are far too puny during fights. Especially the Uruk-Hai, who are supposed to be a kind of super-orc, are mowed down left and right simply by Aragorn and Theoden riding their horses through them. While we see orcs being slain left and right, we rarely see the orcs defeating any humans, elves or whomever. The orcs were vicious, formidable fighters in Tolkien's book, and instead, are portrayed like the storm troopers in Star Wars, whose primary role seems to be to continually lose fights. They should lose, since that's how the story goes, but they don't have to be routed.
Probably not as good as it could have been, but still enjoyable.