Uneven but awesome

Rating: Null/10 (22 January 2004)

After my first viewing, this film left me virtually paralyzed. After a few subsequent viewings and gaining some objectivity, I'll concede it's not quite as good as The Fellowship of the Ring, but still sublime.
The main reason is that it's uneven. Rather than just one journey featuring nine characters, we now have three storylines, each covering the exploits of a third of the Fellowship. The Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli thread is the real meat of the film, and the most satisfying. The Merry/Pippin thread is the slightest, and while it does contain some good moments, there's also some borderline-propaganda moral grandstanding that's always grated a bit. The Ents are decently executed, but not industry-redefining. It's the Frodo/Sam segments that are always the dubious ones. They're stilted at the start, cliched at times on the way through, and veer into saccharine territory at the end.
However, if the treatment of the returning cast is imperfect, the new cast members are dead on. Theoden, Eowyn, Eomer, Wormtongue, and Faramir all work perfectly in their parts, making the dramatic experience of this movie very different from FOTR. Sean Bean's Boromir is sorely missed, but his absence doesn't kill the movie. The one complaint about all the new blood though, is that they seem to cut into Gandalf's screen time. This is critical, as Ian Mckellen's peerless performance was one of the greatest things FOTR had going for it, and his greater amount of screen time is the deciding factor in why I still think it's the superior movie.
The centerpiece of The Two Towers, however, is obviously the battle at Helm's Deep. It takes up virtually the film's entire third act, and contains not only some of the best large-scale action ever filmed, but also, miraculously, a lot of the film's best dialogue. The surfeit of sword and arrow action is impressive, no doubt, but Viggo Mortensen's commanding performance elevates it, and Bernard Hill's ingeniously lit, deeply moving monologue before the battle should have netted him an Oscar nomination.
And then, of course, there's Gollum. Andy Serkis gives perhaps the film's best performance from beneath a layer of pixels. Despite a few scenes where the illusion is more apparent than others (never obvious, mind you), but the vast majority of the time, it's a watershed for digital characters. Gollum makes you forget Jar Jar Binks ever existed, especially in the inspired schizophrenia scene.
On the rare occasions when it's bad, it's mediocre at worst. When it's good -- which is most of the time -- it's masterful. In the end, The Two Towers is an excellent film.