You can leave your long-sleeved t-shirt on

Rating: 4/10 (29 April 2002)

Now, to be fair, I thought the Lord of the Rings books were turgid, overwritten folksy yarns too thickly-written for young children and too purple for children old enough to have developed taste. I read The Hobbit at the right age, but by the time I picked up LOTR I was too old. I could only associate it with greasy-haired reclusive teenagers in long-sleeved t-shirts, their elasticated cuffs flecked with paint from moments of artistic expression with miniature lead models of goblins.
If you were one of these people (and it would seem there are a lot of you out there) then this film is right up your street. The scenes of faux-medieval taverns filled with bawdy folk with British regional accents will have you scrabbling under your bed for your 18-sided dice and Athena posters of fantasy vistas. If not, you will see a road movie pocked with interludes of predictable action sequences made interesting, if not engaging, by extensive use of special effects.
If you do find yourself rolling your eyeballs in disgust, you can pass the time you would have otherwise spent being involved in the film by spotting the immensely irritating tics adopted by the cast. I'll finish with the top ten.
1. The Star Trek-esque fixation that evil creatures must speak with deep booming voices and sweeping arm gestures;
2. The way Christopher Lee pronounces Mordor (readers familiar with the way Inspector Taggart of the Taggart television series pronounces "murder" will feel at home);
3. The hobbits' arbitrary accents picked from rural-sounding regions in the UK;
4. Sean Bean's five-minute death sequence;
5. Orlando Bloom's catalogue model poses as a substitute for acting;
6. Cate Blanchett's cooing (based, I'm fairly sure, on the British astrologer Mystic Meg);
7. The way that the inscription on the ring rhymes in English even though it was written in another language;
8. Sean Astin's "I'm only here for comic relief" character;
9. The indefinable quality in Elijah Wood that makes you just want to punch him.
10. The final exchange between Wood and Astin which goes: Wood: Do you think we'll ever see them again? Astin (adopt West Country accent): I should think so, Master Frodo, there's going to be two sequels (I paraphrase).