A MONTH after boy-wizard Harry Potter here comes the real deal, The Lord of The Rings - the dark, dense shadow cast across any fantasy literature or film of the past four decades.

New Zealand director Peter Jackson's ambitious rendering of JRR Tolkien's story should appeal to fans and non-fans alike, though the very young should be warned off and the three-hour running time pretty much excludes those with small bladders or short attention spans. But it is a thrilling adventure all the same.

The story centres on Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood), a wide-eyed young hobbit who is entrusted with an onerous task after his Uncle Bilbo (Ian Holm) leaves him all his worldly possessions, including a gold ring with a dark and deadly legend.

This artefact has the potential to unite the power in all of Middle-Earth and enslave the various races who currently live there in relative peace and harmony.

There are the hobbits of course, as well as elves, dwarves, wizards and humans. All are susceptible to the corrupting power of this ring, and the fate of all depends on the stout hearted Frodo facing his fears and returning the ring to whence it came, to be destroyed forever.

This is easier said than done, especially when it means crossing the territory governed by the Dark Lord and his army of slavering orcs, the kind of unintelligible bloodthirsty beasts you might see after closing time on a Friday night, but more so. Mixing the elements of classic myth, with layers of imaginative and highly intricate detail, Tolkien created an enduring fantasy classic that has eluded the best efforts of filmmakers through the years.

Jackson is obviously a fan, but the key to his success may lie in the fact that he understood that the three books that comprise The Lord of the Rings could not be successfully condensed into a single two-hour movie.

So this three-hour movie merely tells the events described in the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring.

You'll have to wait until next year for the second instalment.

This may put off the casual viewer, but to have gone about it in this way is a bold signal of the director's integrity and ambition.

And the fact that he shot all three movies at the same time indicates a singular determination to rival that of his hero, Frodo Baggins too.

Yet for a film that is so reliant on its visual invention The Lord of the Rings also contains many memorable characters and several fine performances, Wood, McKellen, Holm and especially Viggo Mortensen among them.

It is a spectacular accomplishment, not perfect but a very stylish and enjoyable adventure that manages to convey the appeal of an enduringly popular book.

It may not eclipse Harry Potter at the box office, but every frame makes it seem like the grander, more mature and enduring variation those same themes.

ANWAR BRETT