As close as you can get to being in the movie

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 2002)

WOW, the two towers was an exhilarating ride. There was so much more to the movie than I had imagined from reading the books. I am not talking about the shape or sizes of characters or the picturesque scenery. The extent that Jackson pushes the story is astonishing. It is so well crafted and thought out, characters are given depth. For example, you are not told that Theoden is King of Rohan with a crown plopped on his head you are shown in the mini-stories of the tribulation of his people. Gollum is a CGI coup, the first believable CGI character, so complex, what a great job!
The Ents come off well too, this is where things also could have gone very wrong but Jackson and WETA have done a good job with this tricky part of Tolkien's story.
I cannot stress enough that the two towers goes beyond a fantasy movie, it is a war movie at its heart. Again Jackson goes beyond to show us what death means, to a dying elf-lord no less, or the psychological terror of war. There is so much to the film, it is so rich in detail, of action, of art work in the form of the material artifacts constructed for the picture, and of cinematography. Oh and it is funny too. The last movie of the Ring cycle, Return of the King, is a year away. So long to wait for the end. Thanks to Peter Jackson and co. we have two movies to watch as we anticipate the payoff of this EPIC trilogy.