Jaw-dropping. There's a phrase that's often overused when it comes to movies. When I hear it I think of those few moments in my filmgoing history when I found my mouth wide open due to sights on the screen. The Imperial Destroyer passing overhead at the beginning of Star Wars. The mothership rising over Devil's Tower in Close Encounters.

I haven't had a moment like that in a long time. I feared movies had lost their power to do that to me. But today I spent three hours in Middle Earth, and I caught myself with my mouth agape again and again.

The opening battle scene. The amazing camera dive from Gandalf's prison on top of Orthanc to the hellish orc-spawning dungeons below. The entire sequence in the mines of Moria. The passage through the Argonath. And on and on.

Peter Jackson, bless him, has done it. He has taken this almost-sacred material, these books which have meant so much to me and countless others, and fashioned a completely cinematic experience which remains true to the heart & spirit contained within. He has avoided the traps that have beset pretty much every other film made in the fantasy genre and delivered a powerful & serious work that will stand as an instant classic.

As someone who has read the books five times, I could niggle here and there with some of Jackson's choices. But that would be pointless. What's up on the screen is what we have. And so much of that is so completely right it washes away any complaints like they were Black Riders at the Ford of Bruinen.

The cast is perfect. Ian McKellan simply becomes Gandalf. I cannot imagine a more note-perfect performance. Ian Holm's few moments as Bilbo make me long to see him in a full-length feature of The Hobbit. Sean Bean takes his limited screen time and makes the conflicted Boromir a fully-drawn character. In his final scenes he embodies the nobility of the Stewards of Gondor. Viggo Mortensen gives us an Aragorn who is a natural leader struggling with his destiny. And then there's Elijah Wood. He is just brilliant as Frodo. His delivery of the famous climactic line at the Council of Elrond ("I will take the ring... though I do not know the way") is breathtakingly perfect - in that one moment you can sense every emotion his character is feeling.

And real emotion is what perhaps separates this film from every other fantasy film ever made. Jackson & his cast maintain the perfect tone throughout and make you feel for the characters. There's a true thrill when the Fellowship is assembled at Rivendell, true terror as they are pursued in Moria, and a true and profound sense of loss when Gandalf & Boromir meet their fates. Jackson provides the sights, the excitement, the wonder, and yet never neglects the emotional bond his characters must forge with the audience for all of this to work.

In recent years moviegoers have too often had to settle in the name of entertainment. Settle for recycled plots and uninspired characters whose only purpose is to provide an excuse for mindless effects & action. Peter Jackson has refused to settle. He has reminded us what movies at their best can do, where they can take us. The Fellowship Of The Rings rates a perfect 10 out of 10, and is far and away the best film of 2001.