Doesn't add to the book

Rating: 5/10 (23 April 2002)

This movie loses a lot from the book, and all it adds are a few special effects.
The first five minutes are cool -- everybody seems to love that part. Then the movie becomes too slow, too formulaic. "Look here, this is where you feel sad. This is where you cheer. This is where you say 'ooh, ahh'..."
A movie can enhance a book by adding dialogue. But in this film, the script is a series of monologues. The characters give speech after speech, and it becomes hard to tell them apart because they're all approximately the same.
When they're not talking, there are a few good action sequences, but most of the time it's characters posing, wallowing in self-pity.