good film, but a letdown

Rating: 7/10 (21 December 2002)

The Two Towers is an enjoyable, and sometimes very good movie, but was a dissappointment to me in the wake of the sheer masterpiece that was The Fellowship Of The Ring.
Director Peter Jackson was able to fill the FOTR with a variety of well-developed characters, a sweeping cinematic landscape, a tense and intriguing storyline, and an overall depth that the book itself possessed. I am no expert on the books, but I do know that FOTR truly delivered the spirit of the book.
Now having said that, one could just take all the battles and action, and hordes of armies and violent characters that exist in the books, plunk them into a bunch of fighting sequences, and make great action movies. The FOTR went beyond that, and captured the true heart of the original book, which is why it was so good, and will go down as a cinematic classic, much in the same way the books will go down as litterary classics.
Being Peter Jackson more or less filmed the trilogy of Lord Of The Rings films back-to-back, I figured that the sheer brilliance put forth in FOTR would be present. That is not the case.
Instead, Jackson has delivered the aforementioned action movie. There's epic battle after epic battle, swordsman after swordsman, but little else. The centerpiece of the books and the first film -- the Hobbits -- are something of an afterthought in the TT, while swashbuckling swordsman Aragorn and bow and arrow marksmen Legolas take the spotlight. These are characters who are embody the standard action movie hero in every sense, but again, don't begin to scrape the depths of the book, which is so much more than what is on display here.
There's word that Jackson did a lot of re-shooting and editing to the TT in the last 12 months. Perhaps he felt the pressure to follow up to the mammoth success of FOTR, and decided to take the safe way out. But what he may have failed to realise is that what made FOTR so great and popular was it's depth beyond your standard action flick. In the wake of the downward spiral of the Star Wars films, which suffer from the same condition plauging the TT, movie fans were looking to latch on to a new fantasy epic, that could provide the great effects and all of that good stuff, but also deliver the goods in terms of story, charachter, and overall depth.
Complaints aside, this is still a fun movie. For starters, you know that you enjoyed a movie when it clocks in at 3 hours long, and you don't find yourself getting restless, whcih I did not. Additionally, The CGI is ultra-impressive, there are lots of incredible visuals (though not on par with the first film), and the action sequences are truly amazing. I just came out dissappointed because one year ago, I went into the theatre to see FOTR not knowing what to expect, and I was given a completley unexpected masterpiece. This time, I went into the TT expect to see another classic, and instead I was delivered a big-budget action flick. Fun movie? Yes. Great special effects? Yes. Another classic? No.
On a closing note, I think Roger Ebert's review of this movie hits the nail right on the head, and he is able to articulate many of the thoughts I have on this film very successfully.