Often cited as the "difficult middle chapter" of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers is still a brilliantly accomplished piece of work, and one of the best fantasy films of all-time. Indeed, there are many who will stand by this installment as the best of the bunch, if somewhat partly due to its frankly amazing final battle sequence at Helm's Deep. Still, the Two Towers is the most dramatically rich movie of the three, as the pace established by Fellowship of the Ring slows somewhat, and characters are given time to talk and discuss plans. The highlight of the movie, of course, is that of Andy Serkis' Gollum; what may seem like old hat all these years later was anything but at the time, as Serkis - along with the geniuses over at the WETA workshop in New Zealand, who created the visual effects - successfully rendered what was arguably the best and most believable CG "creature" in cinema history. But there are great performances here from all the cast, including Bernard Hill, Brad Dourif, Karl Urban and Miranda Otto, who bring a new dimension to Middle-Earth as inhabitants of Rohan.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
