I always seemed to be the odd one out when talking about The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. To make a long story short, I simply didn’t care for it that much. Certainly, it had impressive special effects, and at times it was very entertaining, but at other times it was downright boring. The much-ballyhooed closing battle scene (which, book enthusiasts tell me, is actually three battles mashed into one) was, for me, overwhelming, confusing, and by the end, repetitive. As a result, I left the theater, shrugged my shoulders, and simply forgot about the film in less time than it played out. With that experience, I didn’t go into the second installment, The Two Towers, with all that much hope. But this time I came out surprised.

I’m certainly no expert on the books on which these films are based, but from what I understand the first film strayed somewhat from author J.R.R. Tolkien’s lighthearted spirit. Well, if the first one strayed, then the second is on an entirely different path. It’s as if the good-natured little hobbits have entered the gritty world of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator. The Two Towers is dark, intense, and chock full of violent, gory, riveting action sequences that will astonish most viewers with their complexity and detail. Technically, this film is almost impossible to fault.

And as deliberate and skillful as the visuals and sound are, so too is the positioning of the main characters. This time Froddo Baggins (Elijah Wood), Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin), and the rest of the big-footed, happy-faced hobbits play second fiddle to longhaired, woman-charming, swashbuckling characters like Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen). He’s turned into the resident stud of this film series and will likely get as many oohs and ahhs from the females as Russell Crowe did in Gladiator.

However, no matter how long and flowing their hair is, almost all the real actors get upstaged by a completely computer-generated character named Gollum. Gollum, replete with a split personality that makes him alternately good and evil, steals most scenes with a dazzling display of emotion that all the real actors in this film combined can’t muster up. The success of this character is likely to reinforce the notion that one day a realistic-looking film can be made without human actors. So forget all the self-promotion that George Lucas does whenever he releases a new version of his tired old Star Wars series (thank goodness there is only one left there too). Director Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings series is as high-tech as it comes and puts everything else you see to shame. Whether it’s Gollum or some of the amazing images he puts on the screen, you’ve never seen anything that looks as impressive as The Two Towers.

But that isn’t to say that The Two Towers is all good. Jackson and team have so far taken two installments of a well-respected book trilogy and made two entertaining films from them -- the second much better than the first, in my opinion. But as elaborate and awe-inspiring as this installment is -- and The Two Towers is impressive enough for me to give it a **** rating -- it’s still relatively mindless, big-budget Hollywood entertainment. Oh sure, some will return to the theaters and watch it time and time again thinking they’ll find more buried in the story, but I suspect one viewing of this made-for-the-big-screen epic is all you need to glean the nuances of the tale it tells. For the whole story, you’ll still have to sit down and read the books.

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