Epic Filmaking at its Best

Rating: 10/10 (30 December 2002)

The Two Towers should not be considered as a sequel to the Fellowship of the Ring. It is the three-hour second act, with the upcoming Return of the King being the three-hour third act. That said, knowing what happened in the first film is necessary to understanding almost everything in the second film.
I have read the Lord of the Rings books, and I was not disappointed that certain things were cut out of the first film. However, I was a little upset with a few of the changes that Jackson made in The Two Towers, notably the exclusion of the giant spider Shelob, which will apparently make it into Return of the King. Also, the order in which things happened in the books are not all similar to how they happen in the movie, and the back-and-forth editing hurt the flow of the film and consequently made things feel awkward. As a movie alone, however, The Two Towers is nothing but fantastic. Jackson's direction is quite skillful, especially at the much-revered Helm's Deep scene, which features the greatest "silence before the violence" moment EVER. The visuals certainly have outdone the first film in almost every way, mostly thanks to the CGI creature Gollum, who looks so very real. The acting was on par with Fellowship, but it could have been better if Gandalf and Saruman had bigger roles and more lines.
A few things I was let down by were the sets and locations, which seemed a lot less inspired than in the first film; the writing, which strayed a bit TOO far from the books; and the musical score, which wasn't bad, but wasn't as great as the Fellowship score. The only other thing that bothered me was the lighting. I had hoped the Two Towers would have been darker, but much of it took place in the daytime. Even so, these small flaws could in no way bring down such a marvelous epic as this. Definitely worth price of admission.
1-10 Scale Overall-9 Direction-8.5 Writing-7 Acting-8 Score-8 Cinematography-8.5 Visuals-9.5