Inferior, but still worth it

Rating: 7/10 (1 December 2014)

The adventure continues with two separate stories (readers of the book will notice that the stories have been sandwiched together): one with Aragorn (Mortensen), Gimli (Rhys-Davies) and Legolas (Bloom) on the trail of orcs who have kidnapped hobbits Pippin (Boyd) and Merry (Monaghan); the other with Frodo (Wood) and Sam (Astin) making their way to Mordor accompanied by troublesome guide Gollum (Serkis). No longer obscured by the shadows, Serkis almost steals the movie when brought to the foreground. While undeniably more action-packed than FELLOWSHIP (fans particularly love the intense Helm's Deep battle), this movie is really the start of the corny-lines and moments-of-boredom that plague the rest of Peter Jackson's Middle-Earth films. Hill and Otto are frustrating as the hope-driven king and princess of Rohan. Regardless of how disappointingly inferior it is compared to FELLOWSHIP, it makes for an excellent story-bridge between its predecessor and the following RETURN OF THE KING. TWO TOWERS is still a pleasure for Treebeard (also voiced by Rhys-Davies) and the ents.
*** (out of four)