THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS (2002). Just glimpsed at the end of last year's The Fellowship of the Ring, Gollum, who's voiced by Andy Serkis, is the closest thing the centerpiece of Peter Jackson's adaptation of the Tolkien trilogy has to dramatic depth or conflict. This digitally rendered homunculus is the former owner of the Ring of Power; now debased into a sibilant, loin-clothed junkie craving his Precious fix, he's like Laurence Olivier's Richard III compared with the stiff-upper-lipped fortitude or leering villainy of the rest of the cast. But nuanced characterizations and performances are not what you expect from epics, or high-tech video games, and The Two Towers is more of the latter than the former. Jackson does sustain Tolkien's three narrative lines with admirable coherence. Hobbits Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his faithful servant Sam (Sean Astin) have set off alone to Mordor; meanwhile their friends Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Merry (Dominic Monaghan) have been captured by a gang of mutant Orcs, and the moody human wanderer Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), the Dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies, whose comedy is a welcome but infrequent relief), and the Elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom) have set off to find them. But as we get deeper into the tale, the director seems to get ever farther from its spirit, its emotion, and its magic. (162m)

Now playing at: