Excellent.

Rating: 8/10 (27 December 2002)

The easiest way to sum up The Two Towers is this. If you haven't seen Fellowship, avoid this, rent Fellowship, THEN see this movie. If you liked the character development in Fellowship, this film may dissapoint you because there isn't really any character development. If you thought Fellowship needed more action, this is right up your alley.
I will say this film is entertaining, but far from Best Picture worthy, simply on the fact that it NEEDS for it's viewers to have seen Fellowship of the Ring to understand or care about any of it.
Everything you loved about Fellowship is back, the sights, the costumes, the actors who ARE their characters. But the film does lack major character development. The only person who seemed to change is Gimli, who provides the comedic relief (very well I must say), which is understandable considering that Merry and Pippin's time has been cut back. Aragorn is still the dashing hero, Legolas is still the cunning elf who pulls off all the bitchin' stunts, Frodo delves deeper into the Ring's evil power, and Sam is still worried about him.
The plot is so well told and entertaining it makes this 3 hour movie seem like an hour and a half. The battle at Helms Deep is a HUGE wild spectacle, it gives a great feel of a midieval battle. It was just as crazy and entertaining as the Clone War in Star Wars: Episode 2, but was full of more drama.
I could rant and rave about how good Gollum looked, and he did look good, close up, but from afar he looked like a special effect, what deserves the real praise is the actor who put the performance in him. The really great characters in the film were the Ents. All of the designs for them are so elaborate and imaginative. People who say that Treebeard looked "jerky" and "stiff" when he talked must lack a sense of logic. He's a living TREE, his skin is made of bark, of course he is going to have more stiff rigid movements, bark sure isn't as flexable as flesh. The scene in which the Ents take on Isengard is just a fantastic spectacle, and is one of my favorite scenes.
To sum it up, The Two Towers is a worthy, entertaining follow-up to The Fellowship of the Ring, but only if you have seen The Fellowship of the Ring.