A STUNNING, highly-emotional new film about the First World War had its world premiere in 250 cinemas across the UK.

While Prince William attended the London red carpet showing, Globe columnist Peter Grant was at the Liverpool screening alongside some famous faces.

They shall not grow old is a masterpiece.

Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson is famous for The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

He says this is by far his most 'personal' film to date.

One hundred years on from the Armistice of 1918, we are still asking the question ... War, what is it good for?

There are no answers.

Peter was commissioned by 1914-1918 Now - a creative arts project - and the Imperial War Museum.

What started as a 30-minute documentary is now one 100 minutes long.

Yet the moment you put on your 3D spectacles you are taken back to the outbreak of WW1 – the war to end all wars that was going to be all over by Christmas 1914.

We hear the voices of the young recruits and see their innocent faces at training camp before being shipped to the Western Front.

Jackson uses original film footage much of which has never-been-seen before.

Some scenes appear ghostly as lip readers were brought in to give this magnificent treatment of oral history real meaning from people who were there and fought.

Spirits in uniform are our virtual story tellers as we see the soldiers on their way to certain death.

Barbed wire, tanks, horses ... the rain and mud.

The pain.

All detailed with alarming high definition clarity.

The noise of the bombs.

This hell on earth is re-captured for posterity.

Lest we forget.

Yet there is laughter, too.

It's how the troops coped with the madness around them.

When I first saw the film The Wizard of Oz, I was impressed when it switched magically from black and white into colour.

This astonishing piece of work does the same ... but, oh, how the effect is far more powerful and poignant.

These images will stay with me for a long time to come.

I hope schools across the UK see this film.

I have been to the Fields of Flanders and walked on No Man's Land.

It was an unforgettable experience I will never forget.

But here we are taken deep inside the trenches.

You see the sickening waste of life up close.

It brings home that this wasn't a war fought in black and white – the blood red corpses and the silent poppies speak volumes.

There was a live question and answer with Peter Jackson at the end of the film who spoke of his own wounded grandfather and how he hoped this remarkable documentary may open the door for other colourised archive documentaries.

I hope so, too, as did the audience who broke into applause in Liverpool.

One the way into the FACT cinema I had a chat with screenwriter Alan Bleasdale and his friend Declan McManus (Elvis Costello of Birkenhead) who both told me they just 'had' to see this much talked about work.

Later, after the screening, both looked emotionally drained but spoke of its 'humanity.'

Alan, who wrote the TV drama The Monocled Mutineer and Declan, who lost a relative in the conflict, agreed that it was outstanding.

It left two of our greatest communicators lost for words.

And It left me thinking of my own grandfather deafened at The Somme.

They shall not grow old will touch generations to come.

One soldier is seen chirpily saying "Hello Mum," to camera ...

I am still wondering, even now as I write this review, did he ever make it home ...

This is a majestic, faultless masterpiece.

A film for all seasons - five stars

Showing at selected cinemas.

It will be screened on BBC 1 on November 11.