Academy take heed and recognize!

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2002)

I was absolutely enthralled with the Two Towers, I don't think there are enough superlatives in the English language to express the pleasure and all out thrill I received from watching this movie unfold on the screen. Peter Jackson is absolutely brilliant with his making this movie a separate film with a completely different style of editing from the first installment of the series. I do however wish to make an editorial comment here regarding the Academy of Motion Picture sciences nominating the first film for practically every category imaginable and the film only coming away with a couple of statues. Listen up Oscar, this film is BY FAR the best Picture of the year, and Peter Jackson is a penultimate director and deserves credit for the incredible work that he has done making a movie that is not only pleasing to the fans of the work on which it is based, but also is very well crafted as a GOOD motion picture should be in this day and age.
I read last year that there were some people commenting about the film not being that good because it is basically a chase movie. REALLY? I mean get real people, of course it is, and anyone with half a brain who has actually READ the original masterpieces on which the films are based would have KNOWN that! This isn't Rocket science people! Tolkien I think is smiling down on Peter Jackson right now as he has done well for making a visually and artistically stunning movie.
For those who have Rank & Bass's interpretation of Hobbits and Dwarves and Gollum, throw everything out from your mind. Gollum most specifically is the most accurate and true form to Tolkiens description of not only his appearance but as to his genetic origins being closely related to Hobbits. It is his characterization by Andy Serkis along with the mystical Ent Treebeard played by John Rhys Davies which in my opinion makes this film as good as one who is a LOTR fan would hope for. Not only that, but the CG technology used to create these two characters is by far some of the best computer animation I have ever seen, and the realism that these characters posses is definitely the best live action characters since Jurassic Park. Brad Dourif's portrayal of Grima Wormtongue was also worthy of note as he is as snaky and evil in the book as he was in the movie.
All in all, this is a wonderful fast paced film. The editing was much more snappy than in the Fellowship of the ring. There are many more separate stories going on at the same time due to the Fellowship having parted at the end of the film and there are three separate tracks taking place simultaneously.
The only thing I felt was distracting was where I ended up sitting during the film, I was near the front of the theater and during some of the action scenes, due to how close I was to the screen, it was blurry at times and there was more activity going on than I could follow. This was not the filmmakers fault however, I was just too close to the screen to see everything happening at once.
I would caution those who would like to bring younger children to this movie as it is definitely more violent and scary than the first film and some parents may find themselves calming nightmares for several days after a younger child sees this movie.
Bravo Peter Jackson!