What is a classic? Is a classic book the same as a classic film? No, a book is picked up and read when the reader wants and is seen in the imagination. A film is someone else’s idea of what the viewer wants to see and how long they should view it for. Get the balance of the film right and you have a classic film, get it wrong and...

So, is the film “The Lord of the Rings” a classic. Go and see Part one “The Fellowship of the Ring” and if you can stand three hours of visual effects with minimal dialogue and leave the cinema wanting another six hours than it is, if not you have been bored beyond belief.

Director Peter Jackson’s film of J R R Tolkien’s cult classic has some fine acting from Christopher Lee as the wicked wizard Saruman, Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins the 111-year-old Hobbit cousin of Frodo (Elijah Wood) who is entrusted to destroy the ring with the help of the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen). This he must do whilst being pursued by the sinister Black Riders who want the ring to do more evil.

All this takes place whilst encountering magic, monsters and marvels amidst fantastic visual effects which seem to take forever. An interval or a shortening by one hour would have pulled the film together into a manageable whole for the mixed age group audience. Go see for yourself and see if you are converted to the Tolkien cult, which may or may not be a person’s liking for adventure amidst extraordinary magical experiences, where sexless brutality reigns. A lot of effort went into this film, and there is the rub, it’s a film not a book. 178 mins PG © BA

“The Lord of the Rings” is in York from the 19th December, 2001.