"Two-Towering Achievement"

I saw The Two Towers today.

We started off watching the extended version of Fellowship at noon, in order to "warm up" for the main event - although it has to be said that watching this thirty-minutes-added version of the first part of the trilogy was an event in itself; it's made Fellowship an even better film - before heading off to the cinema at four o'clock.

The show was packed, and we had excellent seats in the middle of row five. I was nervous, just like I was a year ago, sitting in almost the exact same seats - albeit on opening day and not two days later, as was the case today. I wanted everything to be perfect so that I could focus entirely on what would be projected on the canvas before me. No distractions.

Then, finally, the movie started, and the world outside of Middle Earth was lost to me.

What did I think? I can't answer that right now. It's too close, it's too personal, and I need to digest. Most importantly, I need to see it again. It's just too hard to watch this movie the first time around - you keep being amazed, flabbergasted, struck by the beauty of it, the complexity, the surprises, the performances, the music... It's too much. I need to go back, be prepared, and be relaxed enough to just take it all in and enjoy it.

So no review. Not now. But I'll say this: It's amazing. It's not necessarily better than Fellowship, because it's a continuation of the same story, and it's different, very different.

But you must see it. It's a towering achievement (no pun intended) of the cinema. It will be remembered a hundred years from now. And I cannot believe it will be another year before I get to see Return of the King.  ¶ 01:40