Viggo Mortensen Movie:

Editorial Review:
Frodo Baggins and the Fellowship continue their quest to destroy the One Ring and stand against the evil of the dark lord Sauron. The Fellowship has divided and now find themselves taking different paths to defeating Sauron and his allies. Their destinies now lie at two towers - Orthanc Tower in Isengard, where the corrupted wizard Saruman waits and Sauron's fortress at Baraddur, deep within the dark lands of Mordor.

Description of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers:
The extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was perhaps the most comprehensive DVD release to date, and its follow-up proves a similarly colossal achievement, with significant extra footage and a multitude of worthwhile bonus features. The extended version of The Two Towers adds 43 minutes to the theatrical version's 179-minute running time, and there are valuable additions to the film. Two new scenes might appease those who feel that the characterization of Faramir was the film's most egregious departure from the book, and fans will appreciate an appearance of the Huorns at Helm's Deep plus a nod to the absence of Tom Bombadil. Seeing a little more interplay between the gorgeous Eowyn and Aragorn is welcome, as is a grim introduction to Eomer and Theoden's son. And among the many other additions, there's an extended epilogue that might not have worked in the theater, but is more effective here in setting up The Return of the King. While the 30 minutes added to The Fellowship of the Ring felt just right in enriching the film, the extra footage in The Two Towers at times seems a bit extraneous--we see moments that in the theatrical version we had been told about, and some fleshed-out conversations and incidents are rather minor. But director Peter Jackson's vision of J.R.R. Tolkien's world is so marvelous that it's hard to complain about any extra time we can spend there.

While it may seem that there would be nothing left to say after the bevy of features on the extended Fellowship, the four commentary tracks and two discs of supplements on The Two Towers remain informative, fascinating, and funny, far surpassing the recycled materials on the two-disc theatrical version. Highlights of the 6.5 hours' worth of documentaries offer insight on the stunts, the design work, the locations, and the creation of Gollum, and--most intriguing for rabid fans--the film's writers (including Jackson) discuss why they created events that weren't in the book. Providing variety are animatics, rough footage, countless sketches, and a sound-mixing demonstration. Again, the most interesting commentary tracks are by Jackson and writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and by 16 members of the cast (eight of whom didn't appear in the first film, and even including John Noble, whose Denethor character only appears in this extended cut). The first two installments of Peter Jackson's trilogy have established themselves as the best fantasy films of all time, and among the best film trilogies of all time, and their extended-edition DVD sets have set a new standard for expanding on the already-epic films and providing comprehensive bonus features. --David Horiuchi

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Reviews:
A great interpretation of Tolkien's The Two Towers
2009-12-10 - Any Tolkien or medieval adventure fan should own this movie. It's fairly useless without the first movie (Fellowship of the Ring) and the last one (The Return of the King). You gotta have all three!

LOTR
2009-12-07 - Arrived when seller said it would and was in excellent condition, thank you, highly recommend this seller.

Two Towers
2009-11-22 - Movie is great loved it all the way through! Has so many extra feature that the regular version misses out on. If you liked "The Fellowship of the Ring" and "Return of the King" extended version this one is a must have for your collection!

Abysmally boring, hokey, long-winded, dull, ugly film
2009-11-16 - Disclaimer 1: I am a Tolkien fan. I enjoy the Lord of the Rings books immensely for the grand, epic sweep and dignity of the narrative; the moving nobility of the characters; and the pretty much non-stop one-thing-after-another events of the storyline (not as gory or sex-filled as a modern novel, but definitely one menace after another).

Disclaimer 2: I was not going into this film expecting it to be faithful to the book -- and it isn't. You can recognize a few names here and there, a place or two (mostly by name or appearance), but it's so mangled and altered that you might as well call it "Peter Jackson's fantasy story with character names cribbed from Tolkien." Again, this isn't a criticism, though -- I know Hollywood can't stand to stick to a plot, and I wasn't expecting Jackson to, or judging his work on that basis.

However, I was prepared to judge it on its own merits, and by those merits, it's a stinker.

For one thing, the movie drags on .... and on .... and on. We get long views of these ham actors snarling and moping histrionically at each other, going on and on and on. There's never a normal discussion, anywhere -- it all has to be a snarling, prolonged argument, preferably with the actors flinging themselves around or twisting up their features like they've just gotten the world's worst wedgie.

For another thing, for God's sake, have them wash their hair. You get so tired of seeing every single character except Legolas with their faces smeared with everlasting dirt, their hair hanging in uncombed, matted, greasy ropes, their stubble always half-shaven. They look like a group of half-drowned hobos, perpetually. And while they were at it, they might have gotten a lead to play Frodo who doesn't look like Michael Jackson, a woman to play Arwen whose lips aren't so puffed out with silicone that she has a hard time speaking (literally), and practically ANYONE else to play Elrond.

And finally, the movie is cinematically hideous. The color of everything is grey. The lush green grasslands of Rohan are grey. The people are grey. The sets are grey. The clothing is grey. The sky is grey, even when it's sunny. The movie is so grey that it looks like a black and white film, except with less contrast than in one -- at least in a black and white film, you know the colors exist. This film, by contrast, is like staring into a bowl of tapioca for 4 hours.

There are a couple of good scenes -- specifically, the (Jackson-invented) worg fight and the Ent attack on Isengard. The last mentioned, especially, was actually interesting and exciting. But it only lasted about 90 seconds, alas. I will give Jackson his due for those two scenes -- and it shows the wasted potential. He should have ditched the original plot entirely, since he wasn't going to follow it anyway, and made a LotR action movie. His attempts at human interest are hokey, forced, and almost literally painful to watch, but when he goes to action, he occasionally produces a gem.

Except, of course, for the scene in Helm's Deep where Legolas skateboards down a staircase on a shield ....

One Ring To Find Them
2009-10-29 - Like 1983 being the year for movies that have 3 in common, 2002 was the year for part 2's (Star Wars, Harry Potter and this). Again, can't really remember what wasn't in the original release so I'm reviewing the extended one. The cast continues to capture the essence of their characters and adding new dimensions (like the romance between Aragorn and Arwen, which is hardly touched upon in the books). The new cast members (Bernard Hill, Miranda Otto, etc.), like the original cast, capture the characters perfectly. Gollum is finally featured (having brief cameo spots in the first) and is the scene stealer of the film (another common occurance of 2002 was the advent of realistic looking CG characters; Yoda, Dobby and Gollum). The dual nature of the character is intriguing and you really feel sympathy towards him as he's completely bound to the Ring. And Andy Serkis really does an excellent job of switching between the softer voice of Smeagol and the harsher tone of Gollum. The action sequences build upon what the first film has done; the Warg battle and the Battle of Helm's Deep, along with the attack on Isengard are noteworth. Again, from what I can recall of the theatrical version, this is the superior version. For thanks to a new scene, we see the brotherly relationship between Boromir and Faramir and how Denethor (who originally was first shown in Return of the King) favors Boromir.