Hmm, should I walk around and pout today, or stay in and pout...?

Uhh, we need 10,000 cups of sugar...

Again, I'll echo Trehern's sentiments here. Even more than the first film, The Two Towers brings the awe-inspiring landscapes of Middle Earth (aka New Zealand) into the forefront, essentially becoming a character itself. The variation on display is incredible, from the snow covered mountains to the windswept fields outside of Helm's Deep. And speaking of that, holy freaking crap. The scene takes up a solid 40 minutes of this film, and it's not broken up into sections or separated much by cutting away to Sam and Frodo (which happens during the climactic battle of Return of the King). That sequence is all battle, baby - and it's destructive as hell. If you thought the first one was great, but were missing trebuchets, catapults, and one of the biggest battle scenes ever committed to film, then you'll probably dig The Two Towers. My favorite moment: Legolas throwing a shield down the stairs and sliding down on it while sniping orcs with his bow and arrows.

I liked this film a little more this time around than the last time I saw it, but there's still the problem of "the trees." Yes, you hear this complaint all the time, and though the movie was released nearly 10 years ago, it's still all most people remember about this second entry into the series. Much of the reason this movie isn't as enjoyable as Fellowship is because the gang gets split up: Frodo and Sam set off to take the Ring to Mordor and - as Trehern mentioned - there's a much more interesting story of Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn as they search for Merry and Pippin. But those hobbits spend most of this movie on the shoulders of Treebeard, the slllllllloooooooooowwwwweeeessssttttt talking tree in the history of talking trees. And he walks about as slow as he talks. It's a fairly useless subplot, but I wonder if Tolkien intended the trees as an allegory for the slow-moving (yet ultimately effective) government. Saddled with bureaucracy (read: getting decisions approved by the council of trees, or whatever), Treebeard moves with the speed of a glacier but eventually succeeds in destroying Isengard's farm of orcs, aiding our heroes in their quest. (But what happened to Saruman [2]? Is he still up there, trapped in the tower and guarded by Treebeard for all eternity? This is probably a question answered in the books but glossed over on film due to time constraints.)

The plight of the people of Rohan went down more smoothly for me this time around, helped by the recognition of Karl Urban as one of the main characters in that subplot. But the amount of time we spend with Frodo, Sam, and Gollum (the main characters of the main plotline, let's not forget) is wildly disproportionate to the time spent with other characters. Yes, the other guys are awesome, but I still feel like the distance covered by Frodo and Sam could have been a bit better illustrated. Overall, that's a small nitpick in an otherwise excellent movie. Highly recommended - but only if you're watching the whole series in a short period of time.