Found this gem in my Comp/Rhet book...

and couldn't resist. Read it.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is one hell of a spectacular epic despite consisting mostly of guys in medieval armor running around scenic vistas, smashing, thrashing, and flinging arrows into each other with effortless skill. Don't these warriors ever get tired?

So the Fellowship has been broken and our heroes travel their separate ways. Otherwise, not too much has changed. Aragorn is still brave and unshaven, the Dark Lord Sauron is still brewing trouble, and Liv Tyler still speaks in a breathy monotone.

Since the first chapter in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the evil wizard Saruman continues to build his army of disgusting, mindless creatures using his magical powers, his crystal ball of fear, and the biggest nose in all of Middle-Earth. If this world conquest thing doesn't work out, confides Saruman, I could always be the new Toucan on the Froot Loops box.

Come on, is that Saruman's real nose or are his eyes using a walking stick? There will be no dawn for men, he drones. And no spare Kleenex either!

Now I see why we didn't get a better look at one of the Ring's previous owners, Gollum, in the first movie. He's Steve Buscemi in a loincloth!

Hobbits Merry and Pippin meet up with a new character, Treebeard....
Treebeard is an Ent--a race of walking, talking trees. He looks like a towering Sideshow Bob with a bad case of Dermatitis. Treebeard is the oldest being in Middle-Earth, but only because of Joan Rivers lies.

And then there's Gimli the Dwarf who offers war-torn refugees some comic relief. Today he kills twice nightly at Caesars Atlantic City. He's one Brooke Shields shorts of a USO show.

Gimli and Treebeard sound suspiciously alike, suggesting that while Orcs may be abundant in Middle-Earth, voice talent is not.

The time of the Elves is nearly over, warns the Elf leader. Soon, there will be no one to bake the Keeblers....

Elsewhere in Middle-Earth...."There!" exclaimed Frodo, "It's the tower of Sauron." What gave it away? The enormous rabbit-ears on top with a vast EYE in the center? So the Dark Lord gets CBS! You'd think he'd be early on DIRECTV.

Say, if the Dark Lord was really all that powerful, wouldn't he invent a gun?

The good wizard Gandalf returns from what we thought was the dead, but what turned out to be the deepest hole there ever was. Now resurrected, Gandalf the Grey is Gandalf the White. But Gandalf, plum or periwinkle would coordinate better with your coloring, noted helpful Elf Legolas. When Gandalf mounts his trusty steed, it's off-camera for two hours until his triumphant return.

So our heroes speed towards their destination, the place where The Ring must meet its end before our friends do: The fires of Mount Doom...

Say what you want about sequels, but this one is worth its weight in gold. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is a towering, stupendous achievement.

Maybe the trilogy is like an Oreo cookie: The middle might be the best part."
(Mark Ramsey, moviejuice.com December 11, 2002)