How in Middle-earth Is This #1 On Top 250?!?

Rating: 5/10 (21 December 2001)

This film first hit my mind as a film that started out good, but went downhill as a result of the near 3-hour length. Now I think that it was good, but just suffered much from that 2-hour-58-minutes length. But I have still a question:
How in Middle-earth is this #1 on the Top 250? The ending is like that of the first parts of a serial, the film feels like it's 68 years long, and there are too little in-jokes at Middle-earth history, and it manages to beat all films? Please! (If any film deserves to be there, it's "Arlington Road.")
Length doesn't make a movie good (good thing, too--I don't see "Titanic" anywhere on the list)--it's story, quality, and occasionally entertainment. This has a story that's nearly half a century old, wavers into "okayness," and, well, is entertaining the masses. But who cares? We need this brought down to at least 20.