IF IT TOOK courage, money and a lot of time for Peter Jackson and company to embark on committing Tolkein's trilogy to film, then it takes at least commitment and time on the part of the viewer to embark on the extended edition of his films. The new edition of this last film clocks in at over four hours. To watch it, you really need to clear your diary, not answer the phone and generally make it a priority. It is, in every sense, vast. As are the DVD extras, which will take a lifetime to plunder.

Now a confession. I know "Return of The King" was supposed to be the best of the three; but in the cinema it, well, annoyed me. Too many endings too close together. Too much in the way of emotional highs -- it felt a bit too comfortable for such an epic journey. I far preferred "The Two Towers", with all of its cliff-hangers, uncertainties and ambiguities. But I kept quiet about it. I think I was in a minority that had been shamed into silence.

But no more -- after seeing this, I happily join the majority, humble pie served with cream. It's awesome. If you have travelled the whole journey so far, it's a great pay-off. If you haven't, or were one of those who could never see what the fuss was about, this version will either be the answer to your questions or is, alternatively, just too long to even contemplate.

Well, if that's the case, it's your loss. The film is vastly improved. The 'climaxes' that felt too crammed together first time around now seem like necessary and appropriate emotional breathers. The first hour or so of the film is quite majestic too, somehow capturing the aftermath of part two's concluding battle whilst simultaneously cranking up the impending dread of the forthcoming apocalyptic conflicts. Denethor's frightening descent into total madness is all the more powerful as a result of this too -- his story becomes a personal as well as a political tragedy. Gollum just grows and grows into a brilliantly complex creation. Most importantly, Saruman makes a welcome return in the film's early stages, having been mystifyingly absent from the original. The theatrical release was surely weakened by no explanation of the fate if the major adversary of the first two films. The fantastic scene leading to his death is one that only Christopher Lee could get away with. Gollum just grows and grows into a brilliantly complex creation.

The whole film (not to say the whole DVD package) speaks of people who actually cared about what they were creating; the result is at once uplifting while still maintaining the book's realistic final air of melancholy alongside the necessary plot resolution. This is what makes the story so engaging when viewed in this full version -- it may be fantasy, but it's profoundly real. Despite a minimal number of truly great performances (take a bow, Andy Serkis as Gollum), these are characters you really live with for the ten or so hours of these films. They are profoundly changed by the events they experience; for each of the survivors, life will never be the same again. The events we have lived with them are watershed ones that change life and their outlook on it. We've all had moments like it -- moments when we knew life would never be the same again. Where we've heard, seen, said or done something that forever changes something within. It's for each viewer to make their own parallels. But for now, if you haven't yet, surrender. Take a weekend out for the extended trilogy. It may just make be one of those defining moments.

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