Never read the books so im not judging as an adaptation, but that was pretty bad. Lazy use of a narrator, tons of bad expodumping, and pretty boring characters. No emotional moments because I just genuinely didnt care about the characters. left a bad taste in my mouth /:

This movie seems like it was written by someone who read the Wikipedia for this book series but never actually picked up the books. When making a movie based on a book, there are liberties that have to be taken because some things can't translate from the book and some effects (like the size of the fairies) are a hard to produce without costly CGI. However this movie doesn't seem to care about using CGI, and even uses it effectively but uses it in all the wrong places. The biggest issue with this movie is not the complete changing of story line but the betrayal of every single character's base traits for what appears to be no real reason. If you never read the books, this movie is passable, but if you're a fan of the series, prepared to see a torpedoing of all your beloved characters.

Fans of the books will be immensely disappointed as this movie changes everything, and not in a good way (think a wrinkle in time, percy jackson, or mortal engines). If you're going to rewrite the plot, it should at least be entertaining and make sense.

However, not only is this a bad adaptation, it is also a bad movie in general. You're not going to attract any new fans by pumping 90% of your budget into CGI, and then glossing over your characters and screenplay. Absolutely no one is going to say "I liked this movie, now let me check out the books."

It used to mean something when you saw the disney castle at the beginning of a movie. Now it just means the movie you are about to see is going to be a disaster.