As those of you who've read my review of the first movie, you'll know that "The Lord Of The Rings:Fellowship Of the Ring" isn't a great movie. It's a very promising part of a potentially excellent whole. And "The Two Towers" is but the second slice of the trilogy. Sadly, like the first, the McGuffin of a plot is still flimsy, despite the effort and hard work of the team who made the film, and the whole epic experience -and make no mistake it is unapologetically epic - is frankly overdone.

Sometimes less is more. And what we see is more, a hell of a lot more of New Zealand in the opening sequence than in the other film. Long, ponderous panning shots of mountains and snow that seem to last as long as the film itself.

It's not what you show - but what you don't show that‘s important. The problem with "The Two Towers" is that it, like bad television, shows you everything, and tells you nothing. It's trying too hard to be something epic, something meaningful, when all it is is a big overblown nine-hour cinematic romp of good and evil. It's a two-hour classic trapped inside the body of a three-hour epic.

Where some people think an epic is three hours, Pete Jackson rewrites the book. Three hours is just an ad break. A quick, fast, meaningless bit of fun. For something to be an epic, it has to last half a day (including the inevitable ‘extended' editions of each film to follow on DVD) to watch in all. Whereas other people trim scenes in order to add speed, excitement, and clarity, Jackson adds. And adds. And adds. Everything. There's probably a kitchen sink in there somewhere.

Just like the first film, there's huge sequences of irrelevant exposition, dialogue, and improbable, insulting co-incidences. Even the smallest moments are played in such a manner as to try and add weight to what is essentially, padding dialogue.

 Anyone watching Gandalf's appearance near the end of the film anyone watching the improbable sequence where two of the nameless dwarves just happen to climb onto the one talking tree of the thousands in the forest, or where Treebeard jests that his character only thinks that something is worth saying if it takes a very long time, will be aware that Jackson squanders time as if were limitless. Anyone watching this film will be aware that more than anything else, whilst "The Two Towers" runs at 24 frames per second, for vast portions of its duration it runs at one thrill an hour. It mistakes length for gravitas.

Besides, "The Two Towers" are hardly ever seen, and never explained. Why are there "Two Towers"? What is the relationship between them?

The film does has its moments. The implication that runs through this film - through every frame - is that a war isn't about sides. The enemy, what mankind should be fighting, is war itself. The parallels between Bush and Saddam and Osama have never, in my mind, been portrayed in a clearer fashion than the opening sequence that pans over the entirety of Sauraman's domain, composed, as it is entirely of the machines of war. The message is clear. Those who want war will wage war, irrespective of how it may destroy the very fabric of the world we inhabit. These people believe that their pride and their beliefs and their ambition are more important than our very existence.

And the flipside of this comes the perhaps unsung tragedy of the film. Bernard Hill, who throughout the film acts as the King with dignity and forethought on a level I've not yet seen on screen, who realises that despite his best intentions, and the decisions of many, he has led his people into a trap that can only result in the extinction of his people - a man who, despite a will stronger than a horde of Orcs and a purity that outshines the darkness, realises that in a war it is only physical might that will prevail. And those who fight dirty, those who attack the undefended, those who have no concern for ethics, tend to win in a war. Which is why the Bad Guys are the winners.

 
And this brings us onto the finale of the film. The Battle Of Helms Deep, fought on many fronts and with many characters is handled as well as it could be, suffering - as it does - from trying to handle several disparate plot lines and unrelated characters who never meet. In effect, "The Two Towers" is three one hour films weaved together and not always successfully.

As far as epics go, only "Star Wars : Send In The Clones" comes near to "The Two Towers" in gravitas or scale. The problem is that "The Two Towers" is a film that aspires to far far more than it can deliver, and whilst it certainly deliver everything on an epic scale, the only thing it lacks is meaning.

I only hope that the upcoming "Return Of The King" can answer those questions

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