I went to see this movie with my 9 year old daughter and my wife. We all enjoyed the movie very much. I had read the books, and my daughter is about to start. The books are great, and this movie changes a few things and leaves some things out. In spite of that, I really enjoyed this movie and would recommend it to anyone. I agree that for children much younger than my 9 year old, this movie might have been a bit much, but nobody was running out of the theatre. Also, I don't feel the Medusa scene was too long. It was a 2 hour movie, so they needed to give Medusa her fair time, as they chose to leave out some other things. Looking forward to future movies from this series!