Rating: 
Summary: Movies Are Far Superior to Books, Movie Action Only
Review: Be warned, the movies are pure action and have no thinking involved whatsoever.The movies do too much justice to grossly overrated books filled with old diction and boring passages. Peter Jackson has created a masterpiece of a war-movie. Helms Deep takes up most of the entire movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Buy this version!
Review: While the other version of Two Towers is better for those who don't feel like sitting down for four hours, this version is more epic, more juice, more Smeagol (God that character gets on my nerves). The special features are astounding and very researched.
Rating:
Summary: 4/5 for an excellent movie, but a loose adaptation
Review: It's true that this is not as close an adaptation as The Fellowship of the Ring was. But it's still a superb movie, and better than I ever expected. Peter Jackson and company have done beautifully. I honestly cannot understand the opinion of those who feel that the films have somehow been dumbed down from the books, or lost their spirit. Tolkien's writing has been part of my life since my father read me The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as a child and I feel no loss in their translation. Tolkien's rich cultures, his profound love of nature, his hope in the face of greed and war are all here. If they are not as detailed that is because film, being visual, is not as subtle a medium as writing. For those who object to the scenes appearing in the movie that did not appear in the body the book: realize that many of these scenes, such as those between Arwen and Aragorn, are based on material from the LOTR appendices. As for those that are not - such as the warg battle - perhaps they don't improve on Tolkien's story, but what do they detract from it? Leave off the pompous moaning and enjoy the movies on their own terms.
Rating: 
Summary: A travesty of a movie
Review: These movies are a rape of the books of Tolkien in so many ways that a book could be written about that alone. It no more resembles his works than Armageddon resembles Nasa's space program. As for specifics: The characters in this movie don't even resemble Tolkien's in far too many cases. Scene after scene of places and events that weren't in the books and bad dialog writing not worthy of an Oxford scholar. Christopher Tolkien in his wisdom said that he didn't believe that his father's books could or should lend themselves to be made into film. I heartily agree. Not with the film making of today. The visual effects may be up to par worthy of the scenes in the books but as long as there are writers and directors that don't care about the author's intent what's the point? I don't understand why these directors, producers and writers have to dumb down a classic book for the masses. Especially since they have been so widely read. Were the millions who read the books too stupid to understand them so that Peter Jackson has to use cliche and exposition, not to mention characters and incidents that were not even in any of the three volumes, to explain to the dullards what is happening? And to the reviewer from Canada-just because millions of people have loved these movies doesn't make them any better, just as millions of people that listen and love Britney Spears doesn't elevate that to art. Instead of trying to teach illiterates about books through movies how about teaching them to read and not be force fed crap. But I guess that is the socialist's way of doing things. Don't attack the real root of the problem, just dumb everything down for the masses. After all they are just sheep.
I would give it one star but like I said, the visual effects are good.
Rating:
Summary: More darker,clever,exciting than the first
Review: The Fellowship of the Rings was stupid,but The Two towers was better than the first.the first two survivors meet Gollum and others have a battle.Lots of special effects,wonderful cast,and this is the best movie of 2002.Gollum is the best charcater in it.
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Summary: To put it simply... PHENOMINAL!
Review: Wow.. barely ever do you see an extended version of a movie and have it actually be way BETTER than the theatrical version! The Two Towers does it seamlessly, and does it well! The additional scenes looked like they should be there and I wish most had been there in the theatrical version - I don't think I can watch the shorter version again. The extended version is that much better! I have not read the books (blasphemy, I know!), so I felt like the additional scenes really made the movie come together more, and explained to me why certain characters act the way they do. One particular scene is where Aragorn sets the horse free in the stable, then that same horse later comes to save him. In the theatrical version, I was left wondering why this random horse saved his life - the extended version answered that question for me. There are many other added scenes, including more with the Ents/Merry/Pippin, some more with Arwen and her father, more of Faramir and a great scene where Eomer finds Theoden's dying son after a battle with orcs. I haven't gotten a chance to view many of the extras on the DVD set yet, but what I have seen so far is excellent! My favorite extra so far is the stuff with Gollum and Andy Serkis - which I find fascinating! Plus, there is a cute Gollum 'easter egg' which I'll not reveal here - but it's worth checking out. I also listened to a bit of the director's commentary, and can't wait to hear the entire thing. This set is great, well worth the cost. So far, between the Fellowship of the Ring and the Two Towers, Peter Jackson is on his way to making one of the best trilogies of all time (in my humble opinion, of course).
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Adaptation of a Classic
Review: How enjoyable it is to see excellent literature made into an excellent movie. I have to say that when I first heard that Peter Jackson was taking on this project my first thoughts were that he had bitten off more than he could chew. Yet he continues to amaze me. I for one like Peter's interpretation of the books and have overwhelmingly approved of his direction in the films. Most of the reviewers I have read who do nothing but complain about the films are very unrealistic and have no concept of what it takes to make a movie from a book. What Tolkien could describe to the imagination of the reader with a sentence or two a movie might need half an hour to do it properly. When viewing a movie such as this it must be understood that certain elements of the book must be sacrificed for the sake of continuity in the film. To generalize movie making as the same as writing a book is hopelessly naive. With that said this DVD provides a much more complete version of the story. Several welcome additions were present in this DVD that fill in the rough spots quite nicely. The extended sequences with the Ents in particular comes to mind. I especially was pleased to see that Merry and Pippin growing taller from the Ent water was in the film too. The picture and sound quality of the DVD are crisp and clean. I have not yet explored all the bonus material so for that I cannot comment. All in all this movie is an great take on a classic work of fiction and should be owned by any Tolkien fan.
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Summary: Excellent Piece of Film Making
Review: While the extra footage in the extended edition of FOTR was nice, particularly the additional Shire footage and the gifts of Galadriel (I'm still not sure how they could justify cutting THAT section), I was left with the feeling that while it was nice to see, it didn't add that much value over the theatrical version. Consequently, after multiple viewings of the theatrical version, I was not certain that TTT could be improved by adding additional footage. I am happy to say that I was dead wrong. Not only does the additional footage add some nice back stories that help the viewer to clarify motive (e.g., Faramir's stormy relationship with Denethor), it makes the overall fabric of the movie richer. Tolkein purists may quibble over the artistic license that Peter Jackson has taken on certain plot points and characters, but in my opinion, most of the changes he has made were necessary to translate the books to film. I had trouble getting through the book TTT because of the way the story was subdivided. For example, Jackson wisely distills Merry and Pippin's time with the Ents into a few key scenes that last far too many pages in Tolkein's novel. Jackson also wisely minimizes the time we see Frodo and Sam crawling through rocky outcroppings and walking across the countryside. For a visual medium, hobbits walking through a forest or crawling up a mountain are just not that interesting. Instead, Jackson invests a significant amount of time where it belongs, with Aragorn at Helm's Deep, thus setting up the final film nicely. Since this review is being written before the release of ROTK, I can only say that I hope the final installment is as good as the first two, and I cannot wait to completely the DVD trilogy with both the theatrical and extended editions of ROTK. These are movies that can be watched time and again and never become tiresome. I do not mean to sound like a raving fanboy for the LOTR trilogy, but I am very glad that Peter Jackson and New Line took the time to do the films and the DVDs properly!
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Summary: Dear Reviewer from Canada
Review: When I first read your review if was rather put off by your attacks on the practice of writing uninformative reviews. After all it is just an online review forum and your essay seemed to forget that. However, after completely reading your review, I have decided that you have possibly written the most awesome review ever. I bestow mad props upon thee.
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Summary: Better..... (with a spoiler or two!)
Review: The added scenes do make it better, yes.
We get a bit more fleshing out of newer characters, such as Eowyn, in an uncharacteristic scene (so says PJ in the commentary, and I agree) which serves the purpose of revealing Aragorn's age of 87, we get more of Faramir with a compassionate monologue over the body of the dead Oliophaunt rider, an introduction to Denethor, and a blink more Eomer as he searches for Theoden's son in a butchered heap of Rohan and Orcish soldiers.
As far as older characters: we see a splash more dialogue from Arwen, more tortured, unloved Gollum scenes (now, more people are mean to him), the beloved Ent-draught scenes where Pippin and Merry grow, and their raiding of Saruman's food and tobacco stash in Isengard.
The pluses of the extended scenes in The Two Towers is that, unlike in the Fellowship where the Tolkien-familiar viewer gets more of his/her favorite scenes, this version of TTT is fuller in feel, are a little more congruent, and the new-to-Tolkien viewer feels more prepared to go into the next part of the story in the following movie, i.e., The Return of the King.
While I still feel that Faramir's "uncertain if he's a hero" role was a bit redundant in the theatrical release, his aiding Frodo at the end and redeeming himself by showing his true heroic quality is necessary viewing in preparing for ROTK, even if PJ changes the story around.
As reluctant as I am to admit it, Jackson's changes (with the exception of the Eowyn soup-making extended scene) work very well to make a compact (9 hours IS very hard to do justice to Tolkien's Masterpiece), true-to-feel piece of cinema, as well as a coherent, satisfying movie chopped into three large chunks.
Can't wait for the third part!! T-minus.....
Oh, and did I mention the HILARIOUS Easter Egg (sad too few of these. What, ONE? c'mon...) of Gollum's acceptance speech at the MTV movie awards!
As always, all the WETA workshop/behind the scenes features are always very satisfying to watch. Just time consuming. I recommend dedicating an entire day/evening to them.
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