Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is greatest single event up to and including heat death of universe

Epic is a much-abused word in the lexicon of cinematic critique. However, in the case of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers it is — at a mere four letters in length — simply too short to convincingly convey the majesty and wonder of this earth-shattering artistic triumph.

Indeed, even the adjectives Miltonian, Orwellian and Manichean seem hopelessly inadequate when one is attempting to describe director Peter Jackson's towering achievement.

I must admit that I came as a sceptic to the trilogy, having previously dismissed JRR Tolkein's work as "a load of old cobblers". Now, however, in a world inexorably altered by the events of Nine Eleven™, The Two Towers is nothing less than a prophetic allegory for Osama bin Laden's messianic ambitions for world destruction. Indeed, even the sub-title involuntarily — and chillingly — recalls the Twin Towers.

Here, however, our fantasy landscape is filled not with flaming 767s or flying concrete, but rather winged pterodactyls and shattered dams, stunningly recreated using a digital magic which relegates Harry Potter to the Conference League of wizardry.

We follow Hobbits Frodo and Sam through a landscape which might once have been described as Tennysonian, were the term now not wholly unable to properly encapsulate the director's brilliant vision. In turn they confront the sinister Gollum — most surely a bin-Ladenesque creature of the night — and the chilling Saruman who, in sending his Uruk-hai legions marching into battle, outshines even Gollum himself in bin-Ladenate resonance. Admittedly, Tolkein's women Galadriel and Arwen are little more than two dimensional eye candy but hey, they looked the part at the premiere, and that's what matters.

Sceptical I may have been, but I can now assuredly say that with The Two Towers this cinematic patchwork quilt of Middle Earth's battle for survival and reached a majestic climax, chivalric and quixotic, and experience which incredibly reaches beyond the confines of the cinematic screen and somehow reflects the current reality of unease which are the first years of the 21st century.

In conclusion, I do not think it unreasonable to suggest that when, finally, the known universe collapses in upon itself and is reduced once more to a bubbling soup of sub-atomic particles, that even then neutrons will be locked in excited discussion with electrons about the greatest single event in the history of time which The Two Towers represents.

The Two Towers opens on Wednesday 18 December on which date the world will cease to spin on its axis for 24 hours in commemoration of the event.