Okay, first things first. I never read J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and before seeing the first installment of Peter Jackson's film adaptation, I wouldn't have known a Hobbit from a hole in the wall.

Not being a fan, I'd found the first chapter, The Fellowship of the Ring, to be plot-heavy and hard to follow (after the first 20 minutes or so, I thought there was going to be a quiz), but I was awed by the film's beauty and the filmmakers' technical skill. And since chapter two, The Two Towers was shot simultaneously with chapter one (and chapter three) as part of one big nine-hour film, it's not surprising that I found the same things to like and dislike.

By the end of Fellowship, the plot had taken so many twists and turns, I barely remembered what had happened at the beginning. The start of Two Towers doesn't offer much of a road map. There's no recap -- except for a spectacular opening helicopter shot -- the sequel just pretty much picks right up after the last scene of the first film, as if the projectionist was just changing reels.

The main plot line I did remember, Frodo's quest to destroy the ring, doesn't get much advancing in this installment. Instead, most of the focus is on the war between the evil forces of Saruman and the humans of a place called Rohan. Much of the film's first two hours is spent building up to an epic battle at ravine called "Helm's Deep" where the humans have sought refuge from a massive army of 10,000 nasty-looking subhuman killing machines. The huge clash which finally unfolds in the film's last hour is impressive for its sheer scale, if not its level of suspense. Those killing machines, it turns out, die really easily from a simple arrow shot. By the time the climactic battle rolls around, it's the umpteenth we've seen -- this film is far bloodier than the first.

Between war scenes we do rejoin Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his journey to destroy the ring. He and his companion, Sam (Sean Astin), are guided by the Gollum, who sets a remarkable new standard for computer generated characters. Gollum (voiced Andy Serkis -- who also provided a reference for the creature's body movements) conveys more emotion than any human character on screen. His eyes are so expressive, it's almost haunting. I couldn't help thinking the Gollum was more life-like than Elijah Wood.

When the movie is not following a battle or Frodo's quest, there's a third storyline involving two Hobbits who meet up with a race of living tree's called Ents. John Rhys-Davies, who gives the movie its biggest laughs as the dwarf, Gimli, does double duty, voicing the main talking trunk, Treebeard. While there appears to be a not-too-subtle environmental message tied-in with this plotline, it is most notable for the computer generated tree creatures who again turn out to be more human than any of the real actors on screen.

The biggest flaw of the "Rings" films so far has been their inability to engage the audience through the flesh-and-blood cast. After six-hours on screen, I still don't care what happens to any of them. The movies look beautiful, but that's about it.
(c) Copyright 2003