Today I saw The Two Towers for the second time. It was fun. It certainly goes down in my book as the most consistently gripping 3 hour film I've ever seen. On this viewing, I actually found myself thinking, somewhere in the middle of the battle of Helm's Deep, "Oh, drat, it's *almost* over! I want more!"

I think they should seriously consider putting an intermission into The Return of the King, though. Far too many people had to leave the theater to go to the bathroom during The Two Towers.

I'm not sure what I can say about the film that hasn't already been said by a thousand other fans. As with the first film, the visuals are beautiful, convincing, and largely accurate. (I was surprised by the Ents on first viewing, because while I thought they generally looked right, I always pictured them being a lot taller than they were in the film. But I checked the book, and Tolkien clearly says that Ents are 12-14 feet tall, about the same size as a troll. Score one for Jackson.)

I thought the whole business of having Aragorn fall over a cliff was gratuitous. And I didn't particularly care for the Aragorn/Arwen dream-sequence flashback stuff. I did like the scene between Elrond and Arwen, where he talks about what her future will be like if she stays in Middle Earth. That was cool.

I still don't think that they handled Faramir as well as they could have, though the character worked for me better on a second viewing. I don't know -- I think I understand why they felt they couldn't have Faramir behave as he did in the book, but part of me wishes they'd tried. 'Cause in the film, he kind of comes across as "Boromir-lite". Faramir deserves better. He should come off well in The Return of the King, though.

I think they overdid things a little bit when they cast the men of Rohan and the men of Gondor. It's like you have The Kingdom of the Blonds and The Kingdom of the Brunets.

But these are minor quibbles. Overall, I thought it was a great film.

Now, do I really need to wait a whole year for the next one?