*** Official "THE TWO TOWERS" Review Thread (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

1st hour - above average, mainly played for chuckles.
2nd hour - okay, either too slow or too long depends on your POV.
3rd hour - off the hook and totally insane!

The intercutting among the groups in the 3rd act just spoils a lot of the momentum of the film, and the editing could have been better.

The special effects and the production values are first rate, and must be considered the top contender in the Oscar race for, again, most of the technical areas. Gollem was integrated very seamlessly through the film for the most part. The Ents were realized, but I found their personality to truly slow the pace of the film to a standstill (I guess that's point, but it doesn't quite contribute to the momentum of the film as a cinematic experience). Pippen and Merry's hanging with the Ents was the weakest part of the film for me.

The film comes up short in the characterization and scope because it slips into exposition at awkward moments (the sin of "show, don't tell").

Gimli steals the movie from...I'm not quite sure from who, but I'll get back to you on that. Nonetheless, he gets most of the laughs, with some additional ones from Gollem and Sam. Legolas does a couple of manuevers that will elicit applause from the crowd, you'll know it when you see it.

The acting was above average. I think Elijah Woods does a good job showing the effects of the ring's emerging and powerful hold on him. I didn't find a lot of heightened dramatic moments between characters, I thought the crisis points were a bit too laid back in the face of insurmountable odds.

The battle scenes need to be seen on a big screen to be appreciated and enjoyed. The scope of the battles in the 3rd hour delivers a good finish to this 2nd installment of the trilogy.

The audience cheered in several spots in the film, and applauded at the end. A young guy sitting next to me snored at 4 different points in the film, mainly in the 2nd hour, I looked over, and his head was tilted back and he was totally snookered and in REM sleep. Strange, but true.

I give it a solid 3 stars, or a grade of B.

 

[ChadMcCallum]

The Two Towers.

This review is only for the first two hours of the film, I did not see the last hour. I left at the part when Faramir asked Frodo if he should shoot Gollum.


I saw Fellowship on the first showing on opening day. I had not read the book however I had just finished reading The Hobbit. I felt the movie dragged in Lothlorien but overall I really liked it. When the EE came out I fell in love with it. Most of the problems with the film were smoothed out in the extended cut and the film reached a new level. Its now one of my favorite movies. I decided not to read the books until after I had seen the movie so I waited for this day to come so I could find out what happened to what was left of the fellowship.

I should have just read the book.

Before I go on I should mention that the theater didn't have the volume loud enough so you weren't really immersed in the film and the sound on the right side was either dead or very low.

The opening was very good. I loved it. Gandalf catching his sword in midair and climbing on the Balrog stabbing it again and again was a great way to open the film.
Frodo and Sam's scenes were off. The changes the characters were going through happened too fast and all of screen. Frodo's become an asshole all of a sudden and Sam's humanity seems to have be forgotten. He doesn't come off as a friend anymore, just the Hobbit that follows Frodo and Gollum. Sam was a strong point of the last film but now he's not there anymore. Left on the cutting room floor? Maybe. Then there's Gollum. The cgi looks very good most of the time and the voice acting is also great although he is kind of hard to understand. As a character he had me at the part where Frodo call's him by his proper name: Smeagol
but I was lost once he became comic relief. The whole audience was laughing at the part where he's talking to himself, looking very funny and ruining the tension of the scene.
During that scene I couldn't help but think of how Peter Jackson must have seen Spider-Man. This technique worked in Spider-Man, it doesn't here.

Merry and Pippen, two characters who really didn't do anything in the first movie, were what I was looking forward to them in this film. I like the actors who play them quite a bit. They are so funny and seem like such nice guys but they are put on the back burner in this film too. The just hang around with a tree that sounds way too much like Gimili for the entire film. They suffer from Return of the Jedi syndrome, you forget about them during the movie, just like Lando and the rebels in RotJ. Not good. Treebeard seems okay but I suspect that his scenes were heavily cut down as it never really explained his intentions. Too bad. This could have been a good storyline.

Aragon, Legolas and Gimili's storyline was, I think the worst of the three. It was over dramatic Aragon's corny screaming of "noooo!" after discovering Merry and Pippen were "killed" made me cringe
and the characters seem so cold. Legolas doesn't do anything, Gimili keeps on attempting to be funny when there should be no humor and Aragon just looks at Eowyn a lot. The constant group running shots also got on my nerves. They need to be fast. We get it. The frequency of the flashbacks got annoying too. It soon became hard to tell what was happening when. Arwen's scenes had some corn in them too and could have been trimmed a bit.

Eowyn look's mad all the time and really doesn't seem to be that strong of a character while her father, Theodin acts ignorant to what's going on around her. Faramir is introduced way to late in the movie and by that time I had had enough of the movie so I really didn't get to see much of him. Sarumon wasn't that threatening in this film and really didn't do anything. Wormtongue plays it Bib Fortuna and does okay. He seemed to have some character that may be more developed later in the movie or in the next film. Gandalf comes back for a few minutes and quickly leaves so we don't see much of him. Too bad. Everyone else was background filler.

Despite lack of character depth the acting in the film was great. No complaints here.

The special effect's however are a mess. You can very clearly see the blue screen though people's hair. Most noticeably though Merry and Pippin's when they are being carried by Treebeard. Other blue screen effects were very obvious. Gollum looked good for most of the time. There were a few shots where he looked a little fake though. Treebeard looked fine, the Wargs and the elephant-things looked very fake. The rest was pretty good.

The music was repetitive and seemed to have too many Celtic undertones. It was good but it could have been better.

The story was a mess. The pace was all off. The constant bouncing back and forth between stories got irritating. You would get too much of one or not enough of another. The ring is hardly the focus of the movie. You don't actually see the ring clearly until around 2 hours into the film. This is Aragon's movie when it should be Frodo's. I'm sure it all comes together in the final part of the story but the way it is now is unacceptable. I also hated how we're supposed to care about people we don't know and how they care about the people we do. Once scene that bothered me was when Gimili reports to Eowyn that Aragon has fallen. We can hear Gimili breaking up but we focus neither on him nor Legolas showing their emotion. Instead we see Eowyn crying. I wanted to see Aragon's friends react to his death, not some stranger.
The footage shown in the trailers and tv spots also ruined a few moments. We're led to believe that Saruman is the white wizard in the forest, something that would have been effective had it not been shown in every trailer and tv spot that it was actually Gandalf.
What should have been a strong and compelling second act ended up being flimsy and not dark enough.

As I said above I walked out of this movie. That's the first time I've ever done that. I see movies in the theater all the time and I've always stuck with them until the end. Even awful movies like Batman and Robin and Godzilla 1998 but I just couldn't bear anymore of the Two Towers. I wanted it to be good. I've waited a year for this. I've kept my expectations low but the movie fell below them. Not even a battle as large and as cool as I'm sure Helm's Deep was could make me stay. I love the story too much to stay and watch this film. It really saddens me too. So much so that I felt like crying. I hope the extended version mends many mistakes by adding and removing scenes and dialogue and fixing horrendous special effects. As for this cut I don't know if I'll ever watch it again. As for Return of the King I have very low expectations for it. I might skip it's entire theatrical run and wait for the extended dvd. For now though I'll just read the remaining books and pray that the extended cut will be good. I really want it to be.

Overall rating: 3 out of 10.

 

[Travis_S]

In short, I loved it! Maybe it's just me, but I did not once feel that the film was too long or boring. It just worked perfectly for me. I pretty much echo Seth's comments, this is truely a great FILM. I can't think of a movie in recent years that comes even close to the scale or excitement of this. The CGI, while not perfect, gets the job done. After one viewing, I like it better than Fellowship. I also think non-fans will enjoy it more than FOTR, simply because this one focuses more on men and tones down the fantasy (although it is still there, obviously). I thought the sequence of events culminating in the ending of the movie were great. And I think, as good as this is, Return of the King will blow it and FOTR away. Sorry to be so gushy, but this movie makes it hard not to be.
:star: :star: :star: :star: /:star: :star: :star: :star:

 

[Larry Sutliff]

As far as I'm concerned TTT was much, much better than the already excellent LOTR. Amazing battle scenes, superb performances, superb characterization, a stunning score...Everything is nearly perfect in this film. I do agree with some people's complaints about the f/x-a few of them were subpar-but the main objective of special effects is to tell a story, and most were great. The few that weren't as good(the Ents at times, bluescreen,etc.) didn't hinder the film's narrative at all(at least for me). Gollum was impressive, not because of the CGI(which was certainly up to par) but because he was such a well written character. I really felt for him and his plight, especially when
he thought Frodo betrayed him.

I just got back from seeing the film and haven't processed everything yet, but I like it more than I did FOTR right after I saw that, and can't wait to see it again(something I didn't automatically feel for LOTR; in fact, that film never truly hit a homerun for me until I saw the EE). Another viewing or two will solidify my opinion, but as of now:
:star: :star: :star: :star: :star: out of :star: :star: :star: :star: :star: .

 

[Ray Chuang]

Here's what I think: WOW.
It is a little lacking in the character development department, but gawd, the battle scenes way more than compensate. The Helm's Deep sequence just left me dropping my jaw and totally speechless.
I think Jackson took a particularly difficult book and meshed it together in a surprisingly good movie. Yep, it's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time.

My rating: :star: :star: :star: :star: 1/2 / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
Good enough for me to see it in the theaters again. I can't wait for Extended Edition DVD due next November. :wink:

 

[Rusty_K]

Put it simple..... AWSOME MOVIE!

liked it about the same at fellowship and that was my favorit movie ever.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

This movie was extremely well done. It was great.
First of all, it SCREAMS EE DVD. Some plotlines didn't seem to go all the way through (and I don't mean ones that are finished in RotK). I also think that the Treebeard/Merry/Pippin thing could have been developed more.
Speaking of Treebeard, the Ents were AMAZING. They looked so unique and yet so good, I just can't wait to seem them again.
Gollum was also amazing. He's probably the first time a CGI character was able to make you think he was real in the context of actual real people. The integration of him into the film, combined with his character's inner struggle, made him one of the coolest things to see in the movie.
Helm's Deep was awesome, and cutting away from it was a very good move (it made it feel longer, which is exactly what it should feel like).
I don't know what it was, but this film feels different from Fellowship. It could be the way it's shot, the focus of the storyline, the fact that I've only seen it once, or something else, but it stands separate but connected. I wasn't into some of the changes to the story (like the one with Frodo/Sam going to Osgiliath, which I don't remember in the books) but overall the changes were good.
Seeing Frodo change into Gollum is a nice treat.
Overall, it was great and I WILL see it again.
:star: :star: :star: :star: :star: out of 5

 

[Guy_K]

:star: :star: :star: / 5
Big dissapointment for me after loving Fellowship so much. I think the battle scenes and special effects were absolutely amazing in this, but there was absolutely no character development. The movie really lacked the emotional punch of the first installment as well. Remember Boromir's death? That was quite moving. I don't think there was any of that here. The king of Gondor, Eowyn, Wormtongue, Foromir, all these guys had just about zero character development. Gollum is the most fleshed out new character introduced in TTT. When the elf general is shot dead, I really didn't care because he was only in the first two films for about five minutes total. What's worst is that they played that scene for emotional impact. I just didn't care at all for any of these new characters. I'm really hoping the extended cut adds some dimension to these characters.

 

[DaveGTP]

I liked the movie, but not as much as Fellowship. Battle scenes were pretty cool. Excellent job with Gollum. I understood PJ's changes for Fellowship, but I didn't feel that Faramir's character should have been changed, I didn't like him taking them way out to Osgilith. And Aragorn didn't need the fake-dead, off the cliff thing scene with the Liv Tyler flashback. Too many flashbacks of Liv, they seemed artificially shoved into the movie. Overall, I liked it a lot (of course, still better than 90% of other movies), but I had some ornery kind of gripes, I didn't feel that the storyline tinkering was really any better for the movie screen than Tolkien's. Maybe I'll like it better the 2nd time

 

[Rich Romero]

This movie is amazing. I loved everything absolutely everything about it and wouldn't change anything except the scenes with Arwen and Elrond. Those scenes were totally unnecessary and out of place. The pacing of this film felt very intense and rapid, despite the many long scenes of dialogue. Never did I once feel that it was dragging, and the 3 hours flew by. Gollum and Treebeard were the two best CGI creations ever, easily. The blue screen Treebeard stuff didn't distract or bother me at all, because I was too caught up in the movie to be bothered by something so little. Sean Astin definitely takes his acting up a notch from Fellowship, as Sam was definitely a more emotionally charged character, and I DID like his speech. Gollum was hillarious, evil, confused, and basically everything all at the same time, and put all other CGI creations to shame. The Gandalf/Balrog battle was definitely a nice addition, and I loved the visuals down in the Shadow. Once again there was tons of stunning visuals that seemed to show up on screen at every opportunity, featuring some very Lawrence of Arabia-esque sunlight and sky shots. I can't think much else to say, except that I'll see this atleast 3-4 more times before the end of it's run.
:star: :star: :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

 

[Gruson]

It is a really good movie but not a great movie.

I loved FOTR but TTT just did not have the emotion that the original had. I almost felt none of the hobbits really needed to be in this movie.

I really missed Boromir's characer.

I will see it again but I would give it a 7 or 8/10 where FOTR gets a 10/10.

 

[Bill Laskowski]

When I came out of FOTR, I was impressed most of all with the conceptual designs of Alan Lee and John Howe. After TTT, even more so. Edoras, the interior of the Gold Hall, the Dead Marshes, the Uruks camped out under the eaves of Fangorn, Fangorn itself, the Black Gate, troops marching out of Barad-dur, Henneth Annun (that shot looking towards the West as Faramir shows Gollum to Frodo), Helm's Deep (the statue of Helm, his horn), the brief glimpse we get of Minas Tirith in you-know-whose vision, the flooding of Isengard--all, to my mind, perfectly realized, even after having these books form a part of my consciousness for the past 37 years. Their scope and vision make a multitude of sins more forgivable. (Even Aragorn's seemingly gratuitous memory of Arwen at Rivendell--although that was also palliated by her costume.)

The smartest decision Peter Jackson made was to hire Alan Lee and John Howe.

My first comment after the movie was over: "I can't wait for the extended edition."

 

[Chris S]

I'm not a movie critic but I know what movies I like and I liked this one!
:star: :star: :star: :star: / out of 5

 

[Dave H]

I actually enjoyed this film slightly more than the first one. I liked the darker feel and flow better (even though all three movies are one story). I was very impressed. I would give this a 4.5/5.

 

[Eric Franklin]

Well like FOTR, it has taken be two viewings to truly appreciate this film. The second time through everything just flowed so much better, the pacing, the acting the dialogue. I'd give it :star: :star: :star: :star: 1/2 out of :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

 

[Dalton]

A grand epic indeed. I can't wait to see it again. Hats off to Peter Jackson and company. Their hard work has really made Middle Earth come alive for me. I loved TTT as much as FOTR. Gollum/Smeagol was superb. Best CGI character i have seen yet. Highly recommended! I could write a long review but there are already plenty out there.
:star: :star: :star: :star: :star: out of :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

 

[Steve Owen]

MikeRS, you pretty much nailed my thoughts on The Two Towers, though I think I'd give it an extra 1/2 :star: than you did.
Overall, a very good film, and the fight sequences were absolutely breathtaking. But I didn't get the heavy sense of foreboding that I got in FOTR (which I'd give 4 1/2 of 5 to the theatrical version and 5/5 to the extended version).
Highly recommended, but not as good as FOTR.
-Steve

 

[Ben Osborne]

I love FOTR and I think TTT is even better. Gollum and Treebeard turned out great. My one complaint is a slow stretch in the middle with some unecessary Arwen and Elrond scenes, but it doesn't prevent the movie from being awesome. My favorite moments are:
Gandalf's battle with the balrog, Gandalf's first encounter with the three hunters, Easterlings entering the gates of Mordor (I knew what was going to happen and it was still very dramatic), Theoden's cavalry change into the sea of orcs, and or course, the flooding of Isengard.
Fantastic movie!

 

[WilliamP]

This movie will forever be a breathtaking visual epic, that suffers a bit on its own because of multiple storylines and right now there's no ending to it. My one and ONLY complaint is I think they should have edited Helm's Deep so we didn't cut away from the action every 5 minutes. Other than that, this is easily the best film I've seen this year and from the people I was talking to afterwards, this film is going to be better received by the non-Tolkien group I think.
:star: :star: :star: :star: :star:/:star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

 

[Andrew_Ballew]

Went to my local cineplex to see LOTR Two Towers- execting the usual underwhelming experience- but it was worse than I expected.
It seems that the local cinema (Regal) has installed 3-chip DLP projectors manufactured by Christie. I was not expecting this in the least. We are a very small market, so I cannot imagine why this particular theater is now has digital capabilities. It would seem to me that the cost would be prohibitive. Of course, Regal Cinemas is headquartered just down the way a bit, so maybe that had something to do with it.
My first impression was holy crap, if the movie looks this bad, I am not going to stick around for it. This was in response to the pre-movie programming, shown at a very low resolution that made me cry for my old TH-AE100! The screen door and related aliasing and motion artifacts was horrendous. Thankfully when the actual movie started, it became far less prominent, and the pixel fill rate was far superior. But..... that said.....
Screen door was still noticable, and the resolution on many scenes was poor. Medium to far shots took on a softness that was unacceptable- details getting lost in the pixel grid- at least that is how I would describe it.
Black level wasn't that bad- it certainly was not my worst objection, and actually might have been better than a lot of film that I have seen. Still, some scenes lost there impact in the grey murkiness.
I checked the specs on the projector that was in use. You can read about it here.
http://www.ehome.it/media/pdf/cinema/DCP_I.pdf
Let me tell you- 1280 x 1024 resolution with an anamorphic lens does not look good at ALL blown up to 40ft wide.
Thank goodness the movie was worth the poor picture.
And thank God for my CRT projector that in terms of sheer picture quality now runs circles around the local cineplex. I couldn't say that if they were still using film..... Film although limited in some ways can look very, very good. But not this digital stuff on 40 and 50 ft wide screens.
Have a good one!
Andrew B.