Once upon a time, there were two towers, joined in evil, from which a plot was hatched to burn the old world 'in the iron of industry' and to fell its forests so that 'a new order will rise.' And this wicked plot would have succeeded, had it not been for the bravery of a few folk who united the forces of the old world and brought the towers down, replacing the darkness with light.

Great legends have the power to take on new and unexpected significance from one age to the next. Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy has often been used as a manifesto for racial supremacists keen to recreate a world where everything is white, and it is now also easily possible to imagine it being recited in the caves of the Hindu Kush to inspire the bands of al Qaida against the New World Order coordinated from the Twin Towers by 'the Great Satan'. In the shadow of September 11th, we are confronted with the uncomfortable possibility that protagonist Frodo Baggins may be less freedom fighter than terrorist, less with us than against us, and that his circle of friends and helpers may be more axis than fellowship.

Yet even if in the real world there is currently a tendency to see everything in simplistic terms of good and evil, black and white, in Tolkien's fantasy world, here faithfully and imaginatively translated to the screen by Peter Jackson, things are seldom so clearcut. In 'The Two Towers', the good wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and the wicked wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee) are dressed in the same white, and look so similar that one is several times mistaken for the other. The tree-creatures known as Ents have difficulty telling (good) hobbits and (evil) orcs apart. Theoden (Bernard Hill), king of the Rohan, has some good within him, but is possessed by evil. The hobbit Frodo (Elijah Wood) is discovering that the righteous path which he has chosen to follow leads only to corruption. And Gollum - the most nuanced character ever to be realised in CGI - is so divided between his good and evil selves that he has two separate names, and conducts lengthy moral debates with himself which are more dialogue than soliloquy.

From its opening shots of a vast snowy mountainscape, 'The Two Towers' creates a grand vision of sublimity to which only a big screen can do justice. This is cinema on a truly awesome scale, full of huge battles in sprawling landscapes. Yet what makes Jackson's unfolding trilogy far more successful than George Lucas' recent instalments to the Star Wars saga is that Jackson is not just interested in his big world, but in the little people who are forced to live in it - little people whose choices profoundly affect the shape of that world, and who possess a capacity for good and evil in equal measure.

Anton Bitel, 05.01.03