LOTR: The Two Towers: excellent bridge and set up for the ending.

It would be fair to say that this has been one of the most anticipated films of 2002, with a built-in fan base that was slavering to get in line for the film treatment of Tolkein's epic saga. As with the first one, I was ready to be disappointed, knowing quite well that a lot of things can be sacrificed when print makes the transformation into cinema.

I wasn't disappointed.

While this one may be a bit of a let down to those who aren't familiar with the books, or have just seen the first film, for me, I loved it. Peter Jackson and his crew got it right. While there's a few diviations here and there, there's enough left of the book to satisfy even me, the fussy nit picker.

At the conclusion of the first film, Gandalf (Ian McKellen) is lost in the pits of Moria, Boromir has paid for his treachery with his life, and the Fellowship has been broken up into three distinct groups -- Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) are toiling their way to Mordor. Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys Davies) are trying to get to the Kingdom of Rohan, where they may have allies, if they could just get the king to wake up. As for the other two hobbits, Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) they've fallen into the hands of Saruman's (Christopher Lee) orcs, until a very unlike source of rescue.

I won't go into much more detail, because I really don't want to ruin the film for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

The best parts of this film for me was two of the new characters that were introduced -- Eowyn, (Miranda Otto) the niece of the King of Rohan, who both eats her heart out for Aragorn, and yearns for freedom, and Gollum. While Eowyn didn't hold any surprises for me, it was the character of Gollum that really caught me. Using a combination of live action, computer generated animation, Jackson gives us one of the most complex characters in fantasy fiction.

He could have taken the easy way out, and just had Gollum hissing along, gibbering about his 'precious', but instead took the hard way -- gave us a glimpse into a tortured soul. It's done well enough that I was convinced of the character's reality.

Other good parts include the excellent visuals, sweeping landscapes, the production values in sets and costumes. The actors come up to the demands of their roles and fill them with plenty of panache -- especially McKellen, who looks as he was having great fun doing this film. Having to find a way of showing three separate plot lines and still keeping the film together meant that there would be some choppiness between moving from one place to another, but it's not badly done -- I'm expecting that a lot of this will be resolved in the dvd version.

Unfortunately, with the exception of Eowyn, the other female cast in this get very little work to do. While Liv Tyler as Arwen gets a little bit of film in a sequence with her father, and in a dream, there's precious little in this one. That's my one big flaw with Tolkein's work, in that the women are there mostly to encourage and with one exception, get very little of the story to themselves.

The level of violence in this one is much higher than the first one, with the battle of Helm's Deep being presented in plenty of sweeping and close up action sequences. While we don't get splattering gore, there's plenty of intensity to make it not quite appropriate for younger children. The mood is dark as well, and quite a few viewers are going to be disappointed in that nothing really gets resolved in this one, despite there being more than three hours of film.

As for me, well, I'm going to keep my ears pricked up for the next installment of LOTR:The Return of the King, which should be a grand follow-up and conclusion. I intend to get this one in the extended version later on this year.