Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

T

he fellowship of the ring has been broken - but high adventure continues.

Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee continue on their perilous quest to Mordor to destroy the ring and by so doing, put an end to evil in Middle Earth.

Meanwhile, the remaining companions have been split in two. While Merry and Pippin are in grave danger of being eaten by their captors, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli form an allegiance with the Rohan and stand to fight the evil hoards of the two towers - Barad-dur and Orthanc.

Seeking sanctuary in the fortified Helm's Deep, new friends band together for one last, desperate fight against unfathomable odds.

Without their courage, without risking all, there can be no hope for the future of man.

What ensues is a titanic struggle between good and evil - a fight to save man and Middle Earth from eternal darkness.

With the stakes this high and the story (almost) faithfully transposed from print to celluloid, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is an epic movie of just on three hours of nail-biting viewing.

And what viewing. With the majesty of New Zealand landscapes melded with the magic of 3D animation, breathtaking makeup and costume and, of course, a timeless script, it was well worth the long wait since the first instalment.

If I must make criticism, the only minor fault that bugged me at all was the scene when the Uruk-hai, riding dog-like mounts, attacked the Rohan on their journey to Helm's Deep. For me, this scene was about the only one where the 3D animation didn't work. It was too obviously animated. This, opposed to the rest of the movie where you couldn't tell whether it was animation, real good makeup or just plain real.

Case in point - Gollum. A weird, wild-eyed little man, too ugly to be real, yet too real to be make-believe.

Demented by the power of the ring, Gollum is captured by Frodo and Sam and pressed into service as a guide on the road to Mordor's Black Gates. Tormented by a private, inner struggle between good and evil, it is never clear whether or not Gollum is worthy of the trust placed in him by Frodo. But his introduction as a major player in the plot certainly adds a new and delightful dimension to an already complex tale.

After two instalments and with six hour of viewing behind us, we now wait patiently for the third and final chapter - The Return of the King.