What people think of Two Towers (*SPOILERS*)

[Miranda]

I've just seen it and OH MY GOD!!!!! IT WAS FANTASTIC!!! I loved every second and spent most of it weeping or laughing- Legolas and Gimli just remind me of the Two Ronnies soooooooo much!! It was amazing- the graphics the acting, everything! Definately better than the Fellowship (despite that being fab!) Can't wait until Monday until I see it again! Have to do it nine times for the Fellowship- same as last year (and then some!) Mx

[Cirdan]

Oh, I almost forgot. Gimli's discussion of the dwarf women with Eowyn. Hilarious!

[Gerbil]

Erk, forgot about the stupid falling over in front of Mordor.
Idiots - they would have been spotted immediately and slaughtered.

Oh well.

Glad people liked it.

All I can say is I disliked it enough that I'm only planning on seeing it 2, maybe 3 times....

[Gerbil]

spent most of it weeping or laughing- Legolas and Gimli just remind me of the Two Ronnies soooooooo much!!

You consider that a GOOD thing???

[Falagar]

Yeah, I liked that part (maybe except from the "it-was-on-purpose" comment afterwars, which has been used thousands of times...

That reminds me, I was pretty irritated by Gimli being used as a comic relief through the whole movie! He had one seious sentence! (the one where he and Theoden talks about the defence of Helmsdeep)

[IronParrot]

"Erk, forgot about the stupid falling over in front of Mordor.
Idiots - they would have been spotted immediately and slaughtered."

May I remind you of the capabilities of the Elven-cloaks of Lorien - a property of them straight from the book.

[Miranda]

I actually found the comedy a welcome release! It would have been so depressing otherwise! Gimli was fantastic and I thought the comedy sort of heightened the friendship thing between him and Legolas! It was wonderful- I can't falt it! Amazing. PJ if I was deciding the Oscars baby- you're top for nearly every category! Mx

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Gerbil
All I can say is I disliked it enough that I'm only planning on seeing it 2, maybe 3 times....

You sound almost like me over FotR - not as bad of course. But even though I practically hated FotR - I still managed to go 8 times.

I'm going to see TT again tonight at the 9:00 showing.

I'll still hate the change to Faramir though - and I don't care what Jackson's excuse is. He didn't comment on the Flight to the Ford scene - so I dooubt he'll comment on this scene much.

[IronParrot]

jerseydevil, being another fan concerned about what happened to Faramir, I did a bit of research and dug up word that Phillippa Boyens wrote Faramir the way she did because she wanted him to change as a character, and not be incorruptible from the get-go... after some thought, I don't mind this change as much as some other ones. As I said earlier, it does get him to Osgiliath without making his trip there a tangential journey, and it does establish that Denethor expects the Ring to come into his possession.

As far as his characterization goes, I had a big problem with it up until the end, and I think the very last scene with Faramir made everything we'd seen of him up to that point make a lot more sense.

Again, this will require a second viewing.

[Kalimac]

The professional film critics are giving The Two Towers a 99% rating out of 100 for the movie. So far out of 77 professional reviews, there has been only 1 that gave an unfavorable report.
Read more:
Rotten Tomatoes

Metacritic is a bit more critical with an 88% rating:

Metacritic

By the way, the ratings will fluctuate back and forth the next few days as more and more reviews come in.

[IronParrot]

Yes, but while RT is based on a raw percentage of thumbs up vs. thumbs down, Metacritic is based on ratings from 1 to 10 that are averaged out... 88% is considerably high, and I wouldn't call it "more critical", since RT doesn't make a distinction between "good" and "excellent".

And these will definitely fluctuate.

[Gerbil]

Originally posted by IronParrot
May I remind you of the capabilities of the Elven-cloaks of Lorien - a property of them straight from the book.

I don't recall reading where they allowed you to tumble invisibly and hide all the rocks you let loose only feet from an enemy army.

[Gerbil]

While I'm still getting these horrible flashbacks:

Theoden pretending he was in the Exorcist.
What a cheap pathetic trick making Theoden 'possessed' by Saruman. That whole exorcising bit made me cringe at it's dire cheapness...

[claudia silver]

Hmmmmmmmm..........not sure.......need to see it again but first impressions

Liked:
· The Three Hunters sequence
· The Black Gate
· The Warg attack
· Edoras
· The Ents
· Shadowfax
· Frodo/Sam/Gollum interaction (esp Gollum arguing with Smeagol)
. Gollum was perfect
· Eowyn's character

Dislikes:
· The anti-climax ending of the Helm's Deep battle
· Frodo falling into the Dead Marshes
· Aragorn's "death" - Why???????
· The Legolas/Aragorn disagreement
· Arwen and Elrond's Father/Daughter unsuitable boyfriend chat
· Osgiliath sequence - looked good but unnecessary
· Gimli becoming a comic sidekick

Positively hated:
· Theoden's exorcism
· The change in Faramir's character
· Sitting two rows from the front (should have got there earlier)
· The 'coughing boy' sitting two rows behind us

[Erawyn]

I didn't want to be disapointed, i really really wanted this to be good, but sadly it wasn't as good as FOTR.
At first i was set to be mad when the elves were at Helm's Deep and all the other changes, but I don't mind anymore, and I've become totally ok with the book and the movie being seperate things.

The movie was disapointing mostly because there wasn't enough acting, too much fighting. Now I love a good fight scene, but i think Helm's Deep could have been shorter and more climactic, and there would have been room for more DIALOGUE!! there was not very much of it in the film! While I thought a lot of the banter between Gimli and Legolas was pretty funny (the dwarf women bit!) , it got to be a little much. And while I thought Merry and Pippin were a lot better in TTT, they never drank the ent draught, which I loved in the books, and the ents uum, were sort of disapointing. Why did Aragorn have to fall off a cliff, and worst of all, CONTINUITY ERRORS!!! Aragorn's horse changes colour. oy.

I still liked the movie though. I thought Gollum was great, and although more could have been done, I liked the growing relationships between the characters, especially Legolas and Aragorn and Merry and Pippin, I thought it was great when Merry yells at Treebeard. I think Sam gets more interesting in this movie too. I thought Rohan was amazing. I loved the atmosphere of it, and the setting of course was spectacular, and I thought Theoden, Grima, and Eowyn were all well done. I admit I even liked some parts of Helms Deep, I'm a sucker for big (if cliched) heroics, and really enjoyed Aragorn and Co. and when Gandalf arrives. And I LOVED the music. There was this bit in Rohan, with violins I guess, that repeated a lot throughout the movie that I thought was great...anywho this is getting long and probably boring. I will have to see it again.

[olsonm]

I enjoyed it quite a bit. Must see it again.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by claudia silver
· The 'coughing boy' sitting two rows behind us

I can't believe PJ decided to leave that in!

[Celebréiel]

Originally posted by Gerbil
While I'm still getting these horrible flashbacks:

Theoden pretending he was in the Exorcist.
What a cheap pathetic trick making Theoden 'possessed' by Saruman. That whole exorcising bit made me cringe at it's dire cheapness...

::shudders:: Dont remind me! Im calm now no shouting. Im glad some people feel the way I do.
and about Gimli, it doesnt matter if the film would be 'depressing' or sad, the Two Towers was supposed to be emotional, by changing things like that it just changes the message of the story. I dunno some....most of the things were just so unreasonable. ah...ok I wont get started.
Well im glad some of you guys liked it..i dont get how, lol, but still. Have fun.
~Celebréiel

[Firekitten2006]

WOW! Already 3 pages on this, didnt read all of them, but I just saw it at 4PM (my time). It was awesome! While it didnt stay true to the book at times, the Nazgul were pretty screwed up looking and they quite obviously used 2 or 3 different horses for Shadowfax and Brego, I really had a great time! The while Gondor thing really really really pissed me off. While it did work, it annoyed me. I think PJ is trying to get more emotional attachment to characters. I LOVED Gollum arguing with himself! "He's gone! We asked him to leave and he left!" lol I loved it! I was one of those people who laughed through it It was great! Then him and Sam arguing, I just read that part in the book (for the 2nd time) and it was great!!! I have to go, because if I dont I'll just keep going on and on and on

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Celebréiel
::shudders:: Dont remind me! Im calm now no shouting. Im glad some people feel the way I do.

I feel the same about the Theoden exorism too.

After seeing it a second time - that scene and Faramir still bother me.

I agree that Gimli was used as comic relief - but I don't think any worse than Merry and Pippin in the Fellowship. Jackson obviously likes to add a lot of burping jokes in his movies. In Fellowship - he, himself, burps in Bree, in the Extended Edition FotR Pippin either burps or farts and in Two Towers - Gimli is a slob and burps. All of course to get some cheap laugh.

This second time of seeing the movie - the film broke at the entmoot scene. The theater started the movie back up within 5 - 10 minutes - but they gave everyone free passes.