The Ring's Second Foray Suffers From an Overabundance of Minutiae

Rating: 7/10 (25 June 2013)

Peter Jackson and friends apply their epic vision to LotR's second chapter, although this material doesn't sparkle in quite as many ways. While the sweeping vistas and jaw-dropping landscapes are again fantastic and memorable, a noticeably slowing plot means we're seeing more of them, for longer periods of time, than in the previous installment. Rather than the perfect balance of action, adventure and fantasy seen in Fellowship of the Ring, much more time is devoted to romance, pontification and elaboration in The Two Towers, with the wealth of talking heads lending the picture a very long-winded, literary feel. There's still room for a bit of warfare, of course, with the lengthy battle for Helm's Deep gobbling up nearly an hour by itself, but the road to get there often feels terribly long and dry. Perhaps that's just a case of too much material in the Extended Edition, though. Andy Serkis is a revelation as Gollum, while Elijah Wood's performance as Frodo is an improvement over his one-dimensional turn in the first film. It's also worth mentioning that the CGI creature effects, which looked so convincing on the screen back in '02, don't benefit from the crystal clarity of a Blu-Ray translation.