Above: A face not even his mother could love – an Uruk-hai Orc

Above: Frodo does battle on in his quest to destroy the ring Below: Gollum, Frodo’s guide to the gates of Mordor

Let me take this opportunity to say, welcome to a new year of cinemagic. I am pleased to be able to begin the new year with news of another gigantic Irish’s Movie Review Column ticket giveaway. Thanks to Becker Entertainment, I have 150 double passes to offer readers of this column to see a good, old-fashioned horror movie – Dog Soldiers. Six men behind enemy lines, a full moon and the enemy is hungry! Full details next issue

Towering adventure
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

The 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 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 evil hordes of Orcs.

Seeking sanctuary in the fortified Helm’s Deep, new friends band together for one last, desperate fight against unfathomable odds. What ensues is a titanic struggle between good and evil – a fight to help 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 make-up and costumes 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 was too obvious.

This opposed to the rest of the movie where you couldn’t tell whether it was animation, really good make-up 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 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 hours of viewing behind us, we now wait patiently for the third and final chapter – The Return of the King.

The Big Irish Git rates this movie 5 shamrocks

You can view more than 100 other movie reviews by The Big Irish Git on his personal web site www.bigirishgit.com