A Movie Worth Watching Again and Again

Rating: 9/10 (6 November 2013)

I am not sure how I want to phrase this review because some of the things I find as flaws are also some of the best parts of the movie. For example, the fact that they had to shorten it so greatly! This 350 page wonder of a book could have turned out a 10 hour movie easily! So I guess the two and a half hour movie we got was satisfactory.
Speaking of relation to the book. It was VERY specific. While It didn't follow the book entirely (as no movie ever should) it displayed and gave us every key component to the story we needed....until the end. The end would have easily put another hour on the film alone so I see why they would take it out. Even though I found that all the most important events were in the film. I feel like it missed just one, the relationship building between the characters. Almost all of them were whisked into his life and back out almost immediately. Enough that if I hadn't read the book, I wouldn't have remembered their names very well at all. And I especially missed Valentine's and Peter's story as they were without ended on earth. But their story could be almost a whole movie on its own... The relationships between Bean, Alia, and Petra were very missed. Because near the end they would do anything for their commander and we are not quite sure why. But that kind of character development would take hours and hours more on the film so I can completely understand why they would want to cut it short.
All I all, this movie was one of the best movies based on a book I have ever seen. It is a great movie for those who have read and haven't read the book!!! I can tell that a LOT of money was spent on this movie and I hope they intend to make the second one. But I am worried that they might have missed some key components from the second book which I haven't read yet.
I wanted to talk about technical aspects but time is cut short and the story is worth it. The end