Monday 23 December 2002

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

All pretty good stuff. I did feel some bits were glossed over - there's a lot more fun dialogue at Edoras, for instance, that was taken out for no good reason that I could see. Beyond making room for more punching and shouting.

There were a lot of Obviously-Not-Written-By-Tolkien speeches, mostly by Sam that I found jarring, and Elrond, AKA Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Novel was in possession of some highly suspect dialogue.

Mostly very nice though. Good ents, good siege, good trudging towards Mordor, lovely Gollum.

Have heard some complaints about Faramir and the NinjasRangers of Ithilien, but I thought it was mostly OK. That bit would have been quite dull on film without a bit of combat and gratuitious Ring Lust. Waving the Ring in front of a Ringwraith's face was silly though. Very silly.

Also - a bunch of elves turn up to defend Helm's Deep, which is more than they managed to do in the book. I suppose that Peter Jackson thought that the elves looked like Gutless Cowards by hiding in their havens and letting everyone else do the dirty work.

8/10 Not as polished or lovely as the first film, but then the same can be said of the novels.