Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

In a Nutshell: Fellowship was better, but this one isn't bad. (Remember, I'm a non-reader of this series.) Quite funny, actually. As my father put it, not the best three hours I ever spent at the theater, and certainly not the worst.

Quick Plot: When we last left the Fellowship, two members were gone, and the rest had split into three groups. Frodo and Sam head to Mordor to destroy the ring, Merry and Pippin were hobbit-napped by orcs, and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are off to rescue them. We now continue this adventure, already in progress.....

In Detail: I am not kidding about the "already in progress" thing. No preamble, no recap (except one very brief scene), no nothing! The movie just picks up and runs, as if there was only a short commercial break between FOTR and TTT, not an entire year. If you’re fuzzy on the details, you may want to watch FOTR before you come, and the extended edition if it is available to you (it explains a few things more clearly than the theatrical version did). This is neither bad nor good, IMO, I just thought you should be prepared.

Personally, I found this one a little, um, pointless? I mean, I understand where it is going (mostly), and I understand why they showed what they showed, but I don't understand why it took 3 hours to show it. It would have been fine in less than two, I think. If you view it the way the film-makers do, then the Lord of the Rings is just one great big long (LLLOOOONNNNGGGG) movie that they chopped up into three pieces. Think about a 90 minute film. The first half hour is set up (and FOTR did a fine job; definitely got me hooked). The middle half hour is "okay, this is what we have done, this is where we are, let's throw some kinks in, and this is where we're going." Often the most boring part of the movie, but in most cases, it lasts 30 minutes or less. Here, it's three hours and the entire film. The last half hour is resolution, and I think ROTK (Return of the King) will be very good and interesting in that respect. I am really looking forward to it! So, I expect this is the weakest of the three films (having not seen the third, of course). It's still worth seeing, definitely on the big screen if you can manage, but not as good as FOTR. The humor (mainly between Legolas and Gimli) is worth the price of admission. Toss me! ;)

Will I Buy It? Yep. It is the middle of the story, and we already own the beginning. Just hope the end is worth it (though I'm pretty sure it will be). Only 349 days to go!!