the good, the bad ...and all of the rest

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2002)

I saw LOTR2 yesterday, and although I missed quite a lot from the novel, it's been a long time since I have been so entertainted at the movies! In general the movie comes pretty close to the original, in terms of amazing special effects and storytelling, but the biggest difference is the lack of... well "epic proportions". But the same applies for the book of cause. The novel "Two towers" is much more action packed than it's prequel, and this gives Jackson a very good excuse to make 3 hours of action... wich he does! And he does it extremly well! The final battle is one of the best action sequences in a long long time! But this is of cause also the problem, 'cause between ents rampaging Isengard, 10000 orcs attacking Helm's deep and nazgul chasing Frodo there just isn't enough time to go into details with the more quiet subplots from the book! Especially Marry and Pippin's story is almost non-excisting. This is a shame, but I'm sure that it will be corrected in the expanded DVD-set... (Who cares if a movie is 5 hours long, anyway?) But the bottom line is: I really liked the film. It entertainted me and that is what it was suppose to do! (9/10)