I went into this movie with some pretty high expectations since these books were AMAZING - so basically I already set myself up for disappointment. This film did keep very close to the book except for a few details which is something that seems to be very hard to do so in Hollywood so kudos to that. There were certain points that I felt could have been expanded more since they will be important for the next two movies but overall the point got across. I went with 3 others who had never read the books and they thought it was great so at the very least this movie does give the basic gist of the book which is really all you can ask for. As an avid fan, I'd say it left me wanting but I'd probably watch it again.