Rating of
3/4
The quest continues... Worse.
memento_mori - wrote on 08/09/13
After the tremendous success of the first Lord of the Rings movie, we are put back into the presence of our favorite characters, and their quest continues... and isn't as interesting as when it started.
The Two Towers is still a very good movie. I love it's depiction of good and evil, the excellent direction and scenery, and of course the awesome concluding battle, but after seeing it again, I did notice many more flaws that partly took me out of the story.
If you really look at it, not much actually happens in this movie. It's pretty bloated with effects and battles, leaving little room for the interesting continuation of the story.
This is quite typical, because often film makers believe that a sequel needs to go bigger. This is not always better.
None of the characters are vulnerable in Two Towers, either. I never got the feeling that someone of the Fellowship was going to die, we just go lengthy battles and shots of them destroying everything in their way to bring the Ring to Mordor... By foot.
The inclusion of the walking, talking trees also annoyed me. The main tree's name is Treebeard, yet he hates to be called a tree.
Now, to some more positive aspects.
I LOVE the character of Gollum. The way Gollum was put into the story and interacted with Frodo and Sam was priceless. Andy Serkis has remarkable talent and brings Gollum to places I never expected this new side character to go. He surprised me with his inner conflict and double personality, also struggling to decide between good and evil.
Saruman is menacing. Christopher Lee has been in a thousand movies, and this might be the finest role I've seen him in. His devotion to Sauron and reason why he passed over to 'the dark side' were not thoroughly explained, but his character added a lot to the movie and drive the story forward.
It's a solid sequel. I may have been expecting too much, but it's still a fun LOTR movie. Great action, great new characters and a good continuation to the first movie. It sets up the story very well for the grand finale...
