A bit of a disappointment after the first film

Rating: 7/10 (19 December 2002)

After the thickly-layered mountains of praise heaped upon "Fellowship of the Ring", perhaps it was inevitable that "The Two Towers" couldn't live up to it. And maybe I'm the only one who feels that it did not. Unfortunately, where "Fellowship" managed a near-perfect combination of the book's strengths with a good deal of shoring up to cover its weaknesses (sorry, Ringies, but it does have weaknesses), "Towers" shows all too many of the limitations of its source material, and the additions sadly weaken it even further.
Certainly there's plenty to admire. The new characters are beautifully introduced and performed, particularly in the case of Miranda Otto as Eowyn, and a surprisingly sympathetic and complex rendition of Gollum, who could easily have been extremely irritating. The new characters, in fact, come off much better than the established ones. John Rhys Davies' Gimli suffers particularly, reduced to an almost Jar-Jar-like role of comic relief and battle buffoon. Also of note is the spectacular staging of the assault on Helm's Deep, surely one of the finest mass ground battles ever committed to film.
However, there are many more mis-steps here than evident in the first film. A sequence in which Aragorn is separated from the party ultimately serves no purpose, as he simply experiences a flashback sequence and is quickly reunited with his friends. Why? In addition, the pacing is less even than that found in "Fellowship". Where that film managed to pace out its thrills in excellent beats with the story-driven scenes, this one makes the audience wait quite a bit longer for payoff. "The Two Towers" is more likely to test the patience of those not already enamored of Tolkien's world, as it's a long haul from the bombastic Balrog opening to the two battles that cap off the story. At the same time, the many liberties taken with the structure of the book (especially the characterization of Faramir) may put off the hardcore fans.
Still, there are a lot of filmgoers out there who decided to unconditionally love this series long before the first chapter hit the screens, and I doubt that this will dim their enthusiasm. I can't wholeheartedly recommend "The Two Towers" for everyone, but that really won't stop anybody. As a means of getting from part one to part three, it does its job in an entertaining manner. Hopefully, "Return of the King" will bring us as rousing a conclusion as "Fellowship of the Ring" was an introduction. But this definitely represents a dip in the road.