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The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers (Platinum Series Special Extended Edition) Customer Reviews (70 - 72 of 99 Reviews)

Incredibly, once again, Peter Jackson does the impossible
From gliding through the Misty Mountains and reliving Gandalf's battle with the Balrog to the Battle of Helm's Deep, the climactic scene of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, I think that, even though Frodo Baggin's (Elijah Wood) quest is still unfulfilled, a group of hard-working New Zealanders have once again created an epic adventure confection of a movie, full of fantasy, courage, imagination and flair. J.R.R. Tolkien would not have been disappointed.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, since is a continuing of a story, doesn't stop to introduce us to the quest or the characters from the first part, The Fellowship of the Ring. Beginning right where the first left off, Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) must continue their quest to Mount Doom and destroy the evil One Ring. Hunting them done is the rascal Gollum (Andy Serkis) but promises to lead them in to Mordor secretely. In Fangorn Forest, captured hobbits Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) escape from the Orcs and are rescued by Treebeard (voiced by John Rhys-Davies), an ancient ent.

Meanwhile, Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) enter the country of Rohan. After the miraculous return of Gandalf (Ian McKellan), the four see King Theoden (Bernard Hill). But the king isn't doing too well. He's doing practically everything his servant Grima Wormtongue (Brad Dourif) is telling him. Wormtongue is in league with Saruman (Christopher Lee) and therefore is kicked out of Rohan. Aragorn, Gandalf and Theoden must discuss Rohan's plans to counter Saruman and Sauron.

Saruman is preparing for war, as we've also seen in The Fellowship of the Ring. He has been crossing orcs with goblins, breeding the dreadful Uruk-Hai to launch against Men of Gondor and Rohan. Gondor has it's own problems holding off Sauron's evil army. It all comes down to Saruman against the country of Rohan: A war of 10,000 Uruk-Hai against hundreds of Rohan people. Can Men claim a victory against Barad-dur and Orthanc, the union of the Two Towers?

The Two Towers, for me at least, had a quicker pace and sharper sense of movement than the more-episodic Fellowship of the Ring. Peter Jackson easily presents a film that will keep your attention for the full three hours. In many ways, The Two Towers is a much livlier film than it's predecessor. It takes a deeper look into it's character's own problems, dreams and future, covering many subjects: The war for Rohan, the war for Gondor, the war for the ents, and possibly the most important, the fate of the One Ring.

If The Fellowship of the Ring was a beautiful-looking movie, The Two Towers easily surpasses it visually. With the use of a program called MASSIVE, Peter Jackson and company takes flawless computer animation and simplistically adds it to real-life to create a stunning world. The Battle of Helm's Deep is one of the most memorable scenes of all time, while it uses a fantastic blend of live-action and computer animation. I say it's already got the Best Visual Effects Oscar in the bag. Not just because of the CGI, but with the camera trickery to make the hobbits small and the great backdrops.

I am appalled by the number of reviewers saying that this isn't faithful to Tolkien's book. Everyone should know that books and film are two different media, and should be treated as such. Many things in Tolkien's story would've gone horribly wrong on screen. As Peter Jackson said, if you were to film LOTR page by page, faithful to everything, what you would get is a mess. Many don't realize that what works in a book will NOT work on film. Be happy that you actually have a LOTR movie. Many filmmakers would not have been up to transferring Tolkien's story to the big screen. Jackson did make a few unnessesary changes, but he's a brave filmmaker to actually take on LOTR and still make something this good. Quit whining.

It might need a bit more humanity, but I'd say the chemistry between characters is much more alive and vivid in The Two Towers than with The Fellowship of the Ring. The relationship shared by Gollum and Frodo, or more importantly, Gollum and Sam, works wonderfully. Aragorn trying to convince King Theoden to go to war and the characterization involving Gimli was exceptionally. The Return of the King will see a lot more of this.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers continues Tolkien's trilogy with very few missteps. It is on every count as good as the first, and in many ways, even better. It could possibly be the most sinister film ever, a banquet of monsters and beasts. It's doing so much better at the box-office than the first, and it easily surpasses it in spectacle. It's still unclear how it will do at the Oscars. Being a sequel, it might not get nominated for Best Picture. However, I'd say it has already sweeped the technical awards. It certainly deserves it.

A miraculous accomplishment
Peter Jackson proved me wrong when I opined, like many people, that Lord of the Rings would be a bust: Spielberg-adventure at best, Lucas-disaster at worst. Had I known Tolkien's classic was in the hands of the guy who directed Heavenly Creatures, I would have perhaps been more optimistic. As it turns out, my expectations were completely overturned. In some ways the films are actually better than the books, especially in terms of emotional power. Competent actors, amazing cinematography, and a brilliant music score combine to offer us Middle-Earth as we'd never imagined it.

Fellowship of the Ring is the most polished film, with its elegant episodic pacing. We start in the idyllic world of the hobbits and flee with Ringwraiths hot on our heels; we rest in Elrond's sanctuary and plunge into Moria; we come out grieving and console ourselves in Galadriel's safe (yet unsettling) dream-wood, and then wind up surrounded by Uruk-hai. This is a quintessential fantasy road-journey containing three episodes within an episode, each beginning in a haven and followed by a dark journey. The pacing is flawless, and the plot unfolds to a perfect beat.

Two Towers is the ambiguous film. It's excellent (or at least the extended version is) but structured in a way that the hobbits become sidelined by the Rohan story. As they are the soul of Tolkien's epic, we feel slightly nonplussed at their consignment to B-storylines. Ironically, the film is a showcase for cgi characters Gollum and Treebeard, who manage to steal the show from within these storylines.

Return of the King is the most dramatic film, tragic on almost a biblical level, and certainly the most satisfying. I can understand why Elijah Wood calls it "better than one and two combined". It centers on the hopeless mission to Mount Doom, which, as every fan knows, is the heart of the story. Around this we're bombarded by apocalyptic chaos and destruction on the Pelennor Fields, followed by Aragorn's hopeless march on the Black Gate. We finish at the Grey Havens, the best ending in literary and cinematic history, which encapsulates all of Tolkien's themes: courage, friendship, suffering, and passing on. It just doesn't get better than this.

Of particular interest is the way Fellowship of the Ring and Return of the King share so many dramatic features -- without any sense of formula or "been there before" -- lacking in Two Towers. The Nine Nazgul play a major role (whether on horseback or fell beasts), memorable and menacing villains: Weathertop and the Morgul Vale are easily the most frightening scenes of the trilogy; Flight to the Ford and the Siege of Gondor are the most exciting. Frodo's life is put in jeopardy after being stabbed by the Witch-King and poisoned by Shelob, and there is an "edge-of-your-seat" excitement to the horse-chase and spider-fight scenes not found in the second film. Gandalf plays a major role as his character unfolds primarily through his relationship with a hobbit (Frodo in the first film, Pippin in the third), while his appearance in the second film is really an extended cameo. He has dramatic confrontations at Isengard with his rival Saruman; in the middle film the wizards combat each other only indirectly, through Theoden's exorcism. The Ring often speaks to Frodo -- who puts it on three times, and then once -- but in TT the chief antagonist is somewhat sidelined. The Mirror of Galadriel offers Frodo some terrifying visions (not least Galadriel herself), just as the Palantir does to Pippin. The deaths of Boromir and Thedoen are emotionally intense. Likewise, the Breaking of the Fellowship and Grey Havens are emotional endings which accentuate Tolkien's themes of parting and loss. Two Towers suffers from a lack of protagonist deaths and an emotional "Tolkienesque" ending.

None of this is intended to deny that Two Towers is an excellent film (as I said, the extended version certainly is), but the other two films supersede it by virtue of the particular drama contained in the storylines. They're more menacing, exciting, and emotional. My individual ratings are as follows. Fellowship of the Ring -- 97 (5 stars). Two Towers -- 91 (4 1/2 stars). Return of the King -- 99 (5 stars).

Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh, and the WETA team deserve more accolades than I'm capable of heaping to the point of overkill. Suffice to say that these films will be treasured as long as, and as much as, Tolkien's classic itself.

Worth the wait
This movie is even better than the original version (which i LOVED too). I want to give it a 7/5. We really should be able to.
Anyway, it really is worth waiting and paying the slight extra fee for the extended edition. The added scenes are hard to distinguish, but it does add more depth to the story. I recomend this movie to all Lord of the Rings fans.

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