The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
★★★★½ — The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
The worst of the trilogy. Go on then, I'll say it. But here's the thing: when the worst of something is still this extraordinary, that tells you everything you need to know about what Peter Jackson achieved with these films.
The Two Towers has always carried that "middle child" energy, and I don't think there's any point pretending otherwise. Where The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) had the thrill of a world cracking open before your eyes, and where The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) has that overwhelming sense of closure and catharsis, The Two Towers is doing something harder and, honestly, less glamorous. It's keeping plates spinning. It's bridging two giants. And yeah, there are stretches where the pacing sags a little, where you feel the weight of it, where it's clear you're in transit rather than arrival.
But then Helm's Deep happens, and you forget all of that.
I'm not sure I can name many battle sequences in cinema that match it. The rain, the torchlight, the sheer overwhelming scale of the assault against those walls, and somehow through all of it you're still tracking individual characters, still feeling every loss. It's organised chaos done with absolute precision. The sequence builds and builds and builds, and by the time it reaches its peak you're gripping the armrest and you're not entirely sure when you started doing that. It's a staggering piece of filmmaking, and alone it would justify the film's existence.
But there's something else in The Two Towers that I think gets undersold in conversations about the trilogy, and that's what Jackson and his team did with Gollum. By this point in the story he's not a lurking creature or a plot device. He's a full, breathing, tragic character. The scenes where he's essentially arguing with himself, where you can see both the remnant of something almost pitiable and the creeping malevolence underneath, are genuinely remarkable. The technology was groundbreaking at the time, but it's the performance and the writing that make it land. You feel for him and you don't trust him and you can't quite look away from him. That's a difficult thing to pull off.
The world gets richer here too. Middle-earth deepens, new corners of it revealed, the mythology layered in without ever feeling like a lecture. There's a love for this world baked into every frame, and it shows.
So yes, it's the slowest of the three. Yes, it's the one I'd reach for last if I'm doing a rewatch and only have time for one. But I want to be careful about what "worst" actually means here, because in any other context, a film this ambitious, this visually stunning and this emotionally involving would be a landmark. The Two Towers only suffers by comparison to its own siblings.
Four and a half stars.
Rating: ★★★★½ | Year: 2002 | Watched: 2025-04-27
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · HBO Max
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · YouTube TV · HBO Max
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Peter Jackson: King Kong (2005) · The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) · The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) · The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
More with Elijah Wood: Green Street Hooligans (2005) · The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) · The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
More from New Zealand: What We Do in the Shadows (2014) · Mortal Engines (2018) · King Kong (2005) · 'Aho'eitu (2015)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More fantasy: Viy (1967) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
