Super extended gob-stopper edition.
Short-form review: If you liked The Fellowship of the Ring, you’ll like The Two Towers. I picked up the extended DVD version (43 new minutes on top of an already 3 hour running time) last night at Best Buy. The Two Towers DVD overwhelms the casual viewer with two supplementary “behind the scenes” and “making of” DVDs, but for those that love this stuff, nirvana is at hand. Director Peter Jackson is perhaps a little less faithful to Tolkien’s trilogy than hardcore fans might prefer, but I think his movies are great just the same. Towers loses a little of the freshness that made Fellowship so enchanting, but the characters are the same and journey continues so what do you want? And the battle sequences thrill regardless of the rest of the movie. Good stuff.
For those who continue to wonder—and there are several if my email and phone messages are any indication—no, I have not yet seen Matrix: Revolutions. I do plan to see it in the theatre, Jonah permitting, and hope to do so in the next week or two. I will write about it when I do, so stay tuned.