I feel like I'm missing something here...

Rating: 5/10 (21 December 2002)

SPOILERS COMIN' UP! BE YE WARNED!
I agree with everyone here who says that the book and movie are separate entities. It is unfair to expect the same exact plot regurgitated onscreen. That's not what a movie should do. But...
The Two Towers is visually stunning and scored wonderfully. If nothing else, Peter Jackson is a near-perfect director from a technical standpoint. His shots of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli running and then riding across Middle Earth are beautiful and awe-inspiring. The battle at Helms Deep is also a tremendous accomplishment in terms of the reality of a medieval battle as one might imagine it.
Jackson also does make the three plots from the book work in the movie. Abandoning Frodo and Sam for the first half of the movie would have failed miserably. He does a very good job of mixing up the three stories enough so that you're not wondering what the heck happened to any set of characters (a suspense tactic that works well in the book that wouldn't work in the movie).
However, there are problems that keep this movie far from epic status. The two glaring holes in "The Two Towers" are a) a lack of explanation of what certain characters or places are and b) little or no characterization (character traits or actions that wouldn't make sense unless you read the book).
The transition from "Fellowship" to "Towers" is great...but then it gets a little disjointed. There's no explanation of what Rohan is, and what it has to do with the destruction of the Ring. As the movie goes on, the plot diverges so far away from the Ring that it almost becomes forgotten, except for the obligatory scenes where Frodo gets moody or angry or violent. By the end of the movie, the story has moved so far away from the significance of the ring, and so near the "battle for Middle Earth" that it's almost a mystery what these people are fighting for.
But my biggest problem with both movies is the lack of characterization, for the most part. What little characterization there was in the first movie is almost completely lost here. Frodo's character - probably the strongest in Fellowship - disappears here, with Jackson giving Elijah Wood little to do but stare with those big blue eyes into the camera and go through mood swings. Gimli becomes an even bigger joke, Aragorn is a mystery (why is he such a leader? Never truly explained.) and everyone is swept away by events without ever really participating in them. This would be fine if the events were built up to, but they never really are. Things just happen in Jackson's version of "Rings," and the reasons are seldom satisfactory.
One of the greatest scenes in the Star Wars Trilogy (and perhaps one of the greatest movie scenes of all time) is when Luke Skywalker decides to leave Dagobah to save his friends from Darth Vader. He's torn by the decision, but he knows that he has to be true to who he is. It's a human decision made in a supernatural world. At that moment, we feel for him, and admire and care for him because we probably would've done the same thing if placed in his position.
Tolkien also had his characters make these kinds of decisions. In "Fellowship" the book, the Fellowship decides to go through the mines of Moria by vote, whereas in the movie they have no choice. This lack of choice is even starker in "Towers". Saruman influences Theoden's character in the book, but Theoden falls under the wizard's spell in part because he is willing to do so, not because he's literally possessed. In the book, Aragorn gives up the search for Merry and Pippen because he decides that it is more important to help Rohan, even though the decision tears him apart. In the movie, Peter Jackson takes these decisions away from the characters and, by doing so, nullifies what makes them seem real. Without this strength of character, "The Two Towers" becomes a movie where fate overwhelms the human strength that makes characters - and movies - worth remembering.
And the dialogue - what little there is - is slightly below average, at best. Theoden, in particular, has two clunky speeches, and the one about "the father outliving the son" was extremely cringeworthy.

"The Two Towers" falls short of epic by a long shot. It definitely doesn't belong in the Best Picture/Greatest Film of all Time realms either. Bascially, this is a nice looking film that has its moments, but fails to cohesively bring them together. It's clear that Peter Jackson has a love of these books, but the screenwriters' working on this film don't have the ability to pull it all together. It's as if the expectation is, "well, you've seen enough of these types of movies by now to know that Aragorn is the strong hero, and Saruman the bad guy, and Frodo the classic underdog." Apparently, the majority of comments on this movie put me in the microscopic minority, but I just don't get why everyone is drooling over this film. I'm not sure if it's because of a love of the books and seeing the characters come to life or a feeling that, "well, now our generation has our Star Wars Trilogy." I give this movie a 5/10, and hope that if Oscar feels the need to give a nom to a mainstream movie, that they give one to "Minority Report" or "The Road to Perdition" - two films with better performances, better characters and superior stories.