An outstanding, if not totally enjoyable, movie

Rating: Null/10 (27 January 2003)

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers continues the monumental achievement of The Fellowship of the Rings. It is an intelligent and tasteful fantasy epic. That said you might find it a movie you respect more than enjoy. Watching it can be a distant and cold experience. You seem to be viewing the romance and adventure through a frosty blue lens.
The Two Towers is the second chapter of a trilogy that makes little concession to those who come in late. You are thrust into the middle of the action as Frodo and Sam make their way to the cursed land of Mordor. Aragorn and his party track the Orc band that kidnapped Pippin and Merry at the end of The Fellowship of the Rings. Two and a half hours of high fantasy mayhem later you are again left dangling  but not before meeting enough characters to populate ten normal sized movies. This brings up a point: While it is not strictly necessary to read Tolkien's books or watch the first movie to enjoy The Two Towers, such preliminary preparation will help keep your Éomérs separate from your Éowyns and Éothains.

The Two Towers cast is, again, led by Ian McKellen as the durable wizard Gandolf. McKellen's exceptional performance does not steal the movie; rather he is like a star quarterback leading a winning team to victory. Most all the actors were memorable up to and including the computer generated Gollum. The exceptions were, unfortunately, Elijah Wood and Sean Astin as the heroic hobbits Frodo and Sam. Their rather bland performances and wandering accents diminished the impact of Frodo's quest to Mordor. That quest is, after all, the backbone of the trilogy. This is not a fatal flaw as the other performances and the sheer spectacle of The Two Towers is more than enough to carry you through the few dead moments.

Spectacle the Two Towers has in overflowing abundance. Magical and fantasy elements seem to play more of a role here than in Fellowship of the Rings so you have swooping dragons, giant walking trees, huge armies of hell-beasts and a castle assault the likes you've never seen. The siege of Helm's Deep could have been a movie unto itself and is the undisputed highlight of The Two Towers. The epic promise of magical fantasy is realized here but, do to the uniform strength of the cast's performances, all the blood and thunder on display is not at the expense of the characters or their story.
Director Peter Jackson does have some chinks in his style. He has yet to develop a flair for epic movie making. It sometimes seems that his sole way of showing off the size of his movie is with great swooping helicopter shots. Other times he sprints his camera through intriguing environments too quickly to get a real sense of the scene. He also indulges in some topical comedy that, while undeniably funny, is gratingly anachronistic and has the effect of momentarily rousing you from the mood the rest of the movie has carefully built. These, however, are small problems that barely scuff the surface sheen of The Two Towers. A larger barrier to truly enjoying this movie is the afore-mentioned remoteness of its style. This may be more a matter of personal taste than anything else. To me the cool and formal presentation was a little off-putting. To others it might strike just the right note of grandeur. There should be no argument, however, that The Two Towers is a film to be reckoned with and that the cinematic Lord of the Rings trilogy will be judged as much a classic as its literary forbearer.