“I'm probably the billionth person to review this, but I absolutely HATED this movie in the theater! The theatrical release absolutely BUTCHERED the novel, added scenes and events that never occurred, and had me griping for 20 minutes after the credits ended about everything that was left out of and wrong with the film.Fortunately the extended version of the film makes up for most of the problems I had with it, and almost everything I pointed out that was missing either appears in the extended version, or was deferred until "The Return of the King." This is still the weakest of the three movies by quite a bit, but it was the weakest of the books as well. The fact that Peter Jackson took artistic license and made the Ents refuse to go to war on their own, and instead had them manipulated into it by Pippin and Merry still ticks me off, as does the fact that the two Hobbits growing quite a bit after drinking the Entwater isn't emphasized enough. One of them became the tallest hobbit in history, and the other wasn't far behind, and that isn't shown when they get together with Sam and Frodo again. Throw in the battle with the warg riders that does NOT happen anywhere in the series, and Aragorn falling off a cliff so everyone thinks he's dead, which never happened either, and I was pretty steamed with the liberties Jackson's team took with the book, just because they thought it would make for good action and gripping drama. (Ok, Legolas standing on a rise and killing a warg with every shot one after the other was really cool, as was him swinging up in the saddle behind a rider when the bad guys were closing in on him.) But that's NOT in the book! Neither is a bunch of elves showing up to fight at Helm's Deep, and making them like robots instead of hundreds of brilliant fighters like Legolas did them a great disservice. (Of course we were subjected to the same ridiculous portrayal in the last of the Hobbit movies as well.)I could grouse about the differences between the book and the film forever, but I also have to concede that what Peter Jackson managed in his sweeping saga of "The Lord of the Rings" was everything I ever hoped for after I fell in love with the books at age eleven. The director's commentary version of this film explains why he and the really excellent artistic and writing teams he assembled did things the way they did. Once I understood that, I realized the quandaries they faced on what to include and when. Tolkien wrote the novels in distinct sections, but the order they were published in serial form and the order they were assembled into the novels didn't always match. So although the book ends with a cliffhanger, the film doesn't, That's a bit due to Peter Jackson's style - most of the movies end on a hopeful note, even though the first two show that there are great challenges ahead. This movie ended halfway through the last chapter of the book, unlike the other two films. The ending seems cheerful, but we know Gollum is back, and bad things are ahead for the unsuspecting duo of Frodo and Sam.I'm still stunned that so much of what was missing from the theatrical release appears here in the extended version, or in the extended version of "The Return of the King," which was absolutely brilliant and the ending was utterly faithful to the book. The song "Into the West" during the credits was great too. Unfortunately, the song during the credits of "The Two Towers" is forgettable, but it's also in competition with Enya's "Let it be" from "The Fellowship of the Ring," which was the best song of the three.This movie is best appreciated by plopping down on the sofa for a 9 hour marathon of the extended versions of the entire series, and in the capacity, it earns 5 stars. Alone by itself it would only get four, since the other two movies in the series blew me away, while this one had several aspects that annoyed me. The writers could have stayed faithful to the original script and still had a thrilling movie, although only us Tolkien nerds would know the difference...”
“Also wenn man dafür schon Geld zahlt wären Untertitel wirklich ganz schön. Nicht jeder spricht elfisch. Sonst könnte man theoretisch auch jede andere Seite von Streams in Gebrauch nehmen und hätte die gleiche Leistung, nur umsonst.”
“Little that can be said - a very good film, even if not completely in sync with the original book.Great cinematography, acting and musical score.Gollum is really the star of this second movie.”
“Als Herr der Ringe Fan durfte natürlich die Blu-ray Fassung in meiner Sammlung nicht fehlen.Die Qualität gegenüber DVD ist um einiges besser, man merkt es sofort am Kontrast und der Bildschärfe.Es macht richtig Spass den Film auf der Leinwand in HD zu schauen, durch HD wirkt der Film viel realistischer und es werden mehrDetails erkennbar. Zum Film selber wurde schon viel in den Rezensionen berichtet, ein Meisterwerk in meinen Augen. Von der Story, über die erstklassigen Schauspieler und der wunderschönen Kulisse. Man sollte diesenFilm auf jeden Fall geschaut haben, das ist wirklich großes Kino die Herr der Ringe Trilogie. Nicht nur für Fans.”
