This movie was basically a build up for part 2. It was a good movie and time did pass by quickly.
It was NOT completely true to the book but did flowed OK. In my opinion, a couple of things from the book which were kind of skip over quickly in movie would have made the movie much better without adding a great deal of time (4-5 minutes or less) to the movie (disappointing scenes).
Both this movie and the last relied on you to read the book.