(Rated PG-13, 3 hours)
At the end of part one, the Fellowship was forced to divide. This time, we trace the journey of Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) as they venture deeper into the land of the enemy – with the mysterious Gollum (Andy Serkis) serving as their guide. Gollum is sort of a former human affected and mentally deranged by the ring so he looks like a version of ET, but comes off as the most compelling character in the movie. On the other hand, the companions in the Fellowship, Aragon (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John-Rhys Davies), struggle to rescue the captured Hobbits Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd.) All their destinies lie at Two Towers that also introduces a whole new set of characters – the people of Rohan. The audience will find themselves battle weary by the time the big battle comes and will find little comfort in the beauty of Cate Blanchett or Liv Tyler, who together total five minutes of screen time. Ian McKellan is wonderful and real in performance as always, certainly compensating for the CGI of the army of orcs (goblins things who fight humans looking like the CGI characters of “Titanic” when the boat sank. Hoakey.) The first installment of The Fellowship of the Rings made $850 million worldwide and was nominated for 13 Academy Awards. This translates into somewhere out there is a male driven audience who loves this stuff. But, Screen Queen is not one of them.