The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

New Line Cinema | Release Date: December 18, 2002

8.9	USER SCORE Universal acclaim based on 2105 Ratings

USER RATING DISTRIBUTION

Watch Now

Stream On

Buy on

Stream On

Expand

Review this movie

VOTE NOW

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Please sign in or create an account before writing a review.

Check box if your review contains spoilers

0 characters (5000 max)

User Reviews

User score By date Most helpful

RuisertTheMadJan 18, 2003

[***Potential Spoilers***] I loved the stunning cinematography and mountain vistas, I'd bet Jackson could do some wonderful tourism films for New Zealand, something a little less ambitious... Another thing that I liked was Gimli's[***Potential Spoilers***] I loved the stunning cinematography and mountain vistas, I'd bet Jackson could do some wonderful tourism films for New Zealand, something a little less ambitious... Another thing that I liked was Gimli's line about dwarf wives and Aragorn's comment about the beards. It's true to the story, but it is information that's in the book, and inserted in such a way as to develop the history that otherwise would be hard to translate to a film. I wish they'd done some of that during all the travel sequences. And the cgi Gollum was pretty well done technically, but watered down scriptwise, and the (gollum,gollum) was overdone. (Fisssssh!) ...... Other than those points, it was horrible. Horrible. A lot of it boils down to some bad decision making, I think - hiring Liv Tyler for what is not just a bit part, but a minor bit part. I love her in the role, but it's extravagant unless you do as was done and rewrite major portions of the story to justify the expense. Another bad decision was building the set for Edoras. Why? For 3 or 4 scenes? What a waste. But the unforgiveable sin is the complete altering of the story line. Someone earlier mentioned pandering to your typical movie-goer's sensibilities, like not sending the women, children and old men to Dunharrow. Or Leg - O - Lamb skateboarding down the stairs shooting orcs on the way. Please. Then there's the whole loony Aragorn/Arwen sequence. Did someone really think this was an improvement over the book's storyline? Send me some of whatever it was you were taking when you made that decision, ok? Instead, we could have had the wonderful scene in Isengard where Gandalf masters Saruman with mere words and not the ludicrous pyrotechnics we were bothered with in the FotR movie. Or to quote from the TT itself 'Wizards are subtle and quick to anger'. Subtle. I'll bet that's even defined in dictionaries in New Zealand. The part I'm referring to is where Gandalf is talking to Saruman in the tower, and Saruman refuses the offer to mend his evil ways and still help, in some small way, those he was sent to help. Then Gandalf says 'Saruman, your staff is broken.', and it breaks, and his power is broken by the same force that reincarnated Gandalf. Subtle, but very dramatic if done right. And why precious, oh why, did they decide to change Halbarad and Aragorn's other Ranger kin into elfses, and then kill Halbarad in Helm's deep instead of later? Why? I'd have thought it much cooler to see riders that even the horsemen of Rohan knew were the better. One of the most dramatic moments in the second book, I think. Lastly, the final ton of hay that breaks this camel's back is the Osgiliath sequence. Faramir deciding to take Frodo to Minas Tirith, instead of showing his better intuition about the ring and allowing them to continue. Frodo offering the Ring to the Nazdrool, right there where there's no real defense to prevent it being taken. I've often wondered if the writers didn't have bad dreams after reading the Cliff Notes of the Reader's Digest Condensed Version for Dummies of the Two Towers and felt the need to rewrite it. I mean, do you really believe a commitee of people I've never heard of before could possibly re-write something that's sold millions of copies over almost 50 years and improve it? Didn't they understand that the whole game was won or lost on keeping the Ring's location and more important, final destination secret? The way the book plays it, Sauron thinks the Ring is in Aragorn's hand after he shows himself as Isildur's heir with the reforged sword that took the Ring. Now obviously I'm one of those that have read the trilogy more than once, which is saying something. I've read tons of books, but not many rate one re-reading, but I've read these more than I can count. Despite that, I can't quite imagine it real enough. I want to see it just like I've read it, or as close as humanly possible. I know it's difficult translating a book into a movie, and we're talking one book, not 3. I have to give the guys credit for being crazy enough to try and pull this off. They certainly did better than the Ralph Bakshi animated movie that only did about the first half of the story. But I was very disappointed by the sudden complete departure from the story in this movie. I had problems with the first one, but they didn't ruin the movie for me. But I'm still glad I went to a matinee and only paid 2.50 to see this dog. … Expand

3 of 38 users found this helpful

HeroicAge616Oct 26, 2021

The Two Towers stifles its potentially memorable moments for low-brow humor, and overstays its welcome by over an hour, despite not boasting a single developed character.

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

All this user's reviews

Tomas_AJul 20, 2022

The battles are just boring and unrealistic, didn’t find the sense to the movie, not good acting and didn’t follow the dialogue and the story as it is BORING

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

All this user's reviews