So I went to see The Two Towers last night at midnight. Yes, it was three hours long. Yes, I'm completely exhausted. But was it worth being dead-dog-ass tired at work today?

Yeah, probably.

It's a hell of a good film, and I liked it better than the first installment. There's still Hollywoodification of Tolkein here: more focus on love triangles and action, over-emotive slow motion sequences, and most annoyingly, a ton of lame-ass humor gags centered around Gimli (falling off horses, burping, being too short, being out of shape while running, and on and on...Jackson has almost made him the Jar-Jar Binks of the LOTR with his treatment here).

But the film feels even more epic than the first. The special effects are great, even by the most jaded standards. Golem, completely computer-animated, is definitely not another Jar-Jar Binks. He's incredibly well-rendered and well-acted. The battle scenes are awesome as well.

So overall there are many more things to like about it than not. It's been so long since I've read the books that I can't even make a fair comparison, but the movies stand well on their own merits, and this second film is, like I said, even stronger than the first.

I'm still freakin' tired, though.