The Hobbits May Be Short, But 'Two Towers' Stands Tall

Along the way to its stupendous, Middle-earth-shaking climax, "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" chronicles a couple of cases of recovered memory -- an amnesiac king released from a befuddling spell, a scuttling little monster suddenly able to recall who he was 500 years ago. Though my own case isn't quite so dramatic, this wondrous, thunderous spectacle hurtled me back into the head of the movie-smitten kid I once was, all agog at gigantic pictures on the screen. "The Two Towers" casts a spell and then some. The forces of evil are in the ascendancy during most of the movie's three-hour running time, but you can bet the shire on the forces of good -- and not just J.R.R. Tolkien's desperate alliance of Hobbits, humans and elves. An army of filmmakers led by the director, Peter Jackson, has made the trilogy's central section a ringing testament to the power of motion pictures.

That power includes the ability to make us wait in a state of wired expectancy. Elaborate preparations are required for the payoff in this installment -- the massing of troops plus much individual struggle as splintered groups of the Fellowship make their separate ways toward the defining battle of Helm's Deep. (For those who know their history as well as their Tolkien, the battle has strong overtones of Nazi Germany's onslaughts in World War II.) Yet these preparations count as payoffs too, notwithstanding a few squirmworthy stretches that involve slowly walking, slowly talking trees. Seldom has a popular entertainment set its stage so carefully or evocatively, with such lavish respect for its audience.