Bar has been raised for future epics

Rating: 10/10 (23 December 2002)

Just when you think that it is impossible to improve on FOTR, Two Towers leaves you breathless and wishing for more than the 3 hours that it runs for. I will not even try to describe what the movie was like. There are enough reviews here to do that. What I found amusing was to read the reviews of some of the professional critics who had a problem with the movie not depicting `Tolkien's spirit'. Who cares if Jackson did not follow each and every page of the book. He has given us all a movie which none will ever forget and it would be a shame if he were not recognized by the Academy for any of the 3 films. Not to mention Andy Serkis whose Gollum deserves the best supporting actor award this year. It doesn't matter if what we saw on screen was CGI character. Behind the scenes it was a human being who was doing the acting and the voice. Too many movies are made nowadays to wow the Academy voters. Somewhere down the line the pure joy that a motion picture is supposed to provide has been lost on the filmmakers. It is a daunting task to portray visually what millions of readers would have imagined middle earth to be like. Peter Jackson has accomplished that and more with the LOTR series.