> Gollum: Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I'd go so far as to say flawless.

Nope, sorry, wrong. The back-and-forth cuts between "Smeagol" and "Gollum" arguing with one another had half the theater laughing in what should have been a serious, tense moment. Now, the *ending* handled that self-debate exactly right. Would that it had been done that way in the earlier scene.

> Gollum's conflicted, rambling monologues are just amazing in the "acting" and staging. Never a wrong note.

Andy Serkis did indeed turn in a flawless performance. My only real beef with Gollum is the way the aforementioned scene was executed.

> Arwen: Twice, LotR fans dreaded Arwen's expanded role in the movies. For the second time, there is nothing to worry about. Her involvement in Two Towers is exactly right.

Yep, except that some of the scenes where she appears in Aragorn's dreams walk perilously close to the edge of cheesiness.

> Faramir: My biggest problem. Faramir's place in the story is as a counterpoint to Boromir. That counterpoint is missing and meaningless as his character is filmed. Worse still, his sudden change of heart has no discernible source. I guess the sum of my problem with Faramir is that I could never get inside his head.

Good points. I left the theater hoping that the encounter with Faramir and other episodes would be filled out better in the extended cut on DVD next year. I recently received the extended version of _Fellowship_ and thought it improved greatly on the theatrical release.

> Wormtongue: Rocking. His slightly expanded role works beautifully.

Yep, agreed here as well. Wormtongue was very well played.

> Theoden: His restoration rocked.

Nope, sorry, wrong again. The restoration *sucked*. Big time. It was a facile avoidance of the more complicated relationship Tolkien drew between Gandalf and Theoden. I forgive it only on the grounds that the streamlining has to take place *somewhere*, and to omit that bit of complexity in the movie is understandable. But to replace it with the virtual possession of Theoden by Saruman and the king's instantaneous magical healing? Bah.

> Actually I probably don't have so much of a problem with Theoden as I do with the general tenor of the debates amongst the characters at Helm's Deep, which seems to consist mostly of arguing about whether or not the cause is hopeless.

I don't know whether that's the reason, but those debates felt somehow lacking to me as well.

> The Ents: The Ents are responsible for one of the best and one of the worst things about the movie. The good thing is the sacking of Isengard: WHOA.

Yep. Ents r0x0r.

> But the nature and world of the Ents just does not come across in the movie at all.

Not only so, but for half the movie, every time we cut back to Merry and Pippin -- yep, they're *still* riding around on Treebeard's shoulders. I began to despair that they might spend the entire film getting a piggy-back ride.

> On the other hand, there is something to be said for a movie that has a walking, talking tree in it and doesn't completely throw out all suspension of disbelief.

True. Did I mention that Ents r0x0r?

> Gimli: The script walks close to the edge in making Gimli responsible for so much comic relief. But the vast majority of it works. Just two moments are unsuccessful: a gag with chain mail is neutral. And prolonging an initially hilarious height gag on the walls of Helm's Deep ends up breaking tension.

Yep. A little too much comic relief for my taste, but they didn't go too far overboard. My favorite comic moment with Gimli? "Toss me!"

> Wargs and Oliphaunts: Those things *rock*.

Oliphaunts more than Wargs, but yeah.

> A tower collapses from a large projectile and, I don't know, people don't react quite how you'd figure. And then people end up running around and fighting or something, but the source of the commotion seems to be left unattended. I couldn't figure that out at all.

Yeah, and then there's that whole thing with the Ringwraith there with Frodo and the ring right in front of him. What's Sauron going to conclude when the report gets back to him? The enemy has his ring, but they've got it practically at his doorstep and they're *still* letting that hobbit thing carry it around? This seemed to give the Dark Lord way too big a tip that, hey, maybe the rulers among men aren't going to claim the ring for themselves and use it against him after all. But that's a pretty minor gripe.

> Gandalf: What a thrill his first scene is! And although I didn't appreciate the expedited handling of the Ents, the expedited handling of Gandalf's return is right on the money.

Except that they used a smidgen too much of Christopher Lee's voice when you first meet the White Wizard, before you can see his face. That seemed to go a step beyond building uncertainty and anticipation to actually cheating the audience. Again, a pretty small gripe.

Iss "I do this every year" achar