I was in awe of every aspect of this movie. I haven't read the books and being a HUGE Lord of the Rings trilogy fan the only thing I had a hard time with was missing the characters from the first 3, but the characters in this and I assume the rest of the trilogy quickly become lovable. The effects are so incredible it's worth seeing just for those aspects! I was blown away but expected nothing less from this series. Some other reviews note that it was "slow". I've noticed that sometimes it's necessary in order to introduce new characters and establish the story. A little slow in the beginning, but the rest was non stop action and intense scenes (even when there wasn't intense action) so I didn't feel it was unnecessary or too slow.