What is the difference between the two strongholds? Well, the second volume just begins those epic battles, which depict so many in Hollywood. There is a place to turn in terms of entertainment - "The Fellowship of the Ring" such scenes would be completely devoid, if not for retrospective scenes of battles of the past in the prologue. Here the War of the Ring begins in earnest - no longer skirmishes, but the storming of fortresses and clashes of thousands of armies in the field. About the scope of the battles and the steepness of the special effects of the Jackson trilogy said everything before me. Here are the filmmakers in their element.
The writers added a bit of humor to the dialogue. Good jokes, quite in the spirit of Tolkien, unexpectedly caused discontent of many viewers - made, they say, of Gimli a laughing stock. As for me, the jokes were quite successful, especially the drinking competition.
Some changes are rather puzzling. Ents in the film adaptation are more inert and less clever than in the book - why? The fate of Isengard and its inhabitants is also very different from the book - also a questionable moment.
But the most annoying was the diligently inflated love line of Arwen and Aragorn. Bringing a love conflict to the forefront is a seductive but cheap technique. The goal, of course, is clear – to expand the target audience at the expense of girls who will not go to the film “not about love”. Hollywood is like Hollywood – business is business, money must be recaptured somehow. But all: the protrusion of this far third-rate storyline is an extra, pop move. And all these "romantic" flashbacks I almost fell asleep.
And yet this time the essence and atmosphere of the book did not escape either the director or (as a result) the audience. The Great War for the Ring has begun and the time of choice has come for everyone, not just the Fellowship of the Ring. Everyone, from a peaceful hobbit to the king of a warlike country, has to choose a side in this decisive confrontation.
What else can I add? The new actors were selected perfectly - Bernard Hill (Theoden), Miranda Otto (Eovin), Carl Urban (Eomer), David Wenham (Faramir). And the masters of special effects, in turn, worked well on Horlum and Ents.
And finally, it makes sense to watch only in the director's version. Yes, its timing is monstrous, but in the theater dialogues are severely cut, up to the “hang” of phrases and the lack of clear interaction between the characters. The first part, by the way, I saw in the theatrical version; however, I doubt that this greatly influenced the assessment - many important episodes of the book were, as far as I know, not just cut, but not removed at all.
Result: I like the second part better. In part, this is a shame – after working on the mistakes, Peter Jackson left behind the unfinished and confused “Brotherhood of the Ring”. As for "Two Fortresses" - here we see a good, although far from perfect, adaptation of the greatest fantasy saga in history. 8 out of 10
Original
