[XJarhead]

The problem I had the with movie was the same as the problem I had with the books. It was just too "thin", and very linear. I think that's fine if you're a kid, because they get lost if the story is too complex. Or maybe it just suffers in comparison to LOTR. But it just seemed to me that not very much happens, and I'm someone who read the books for the first time perhaps 30 years ago, and reread them recently.

That being said, my kids liked it. But my 5 year old liked it more than the 9 year old because the older one was a bit bored by it.

[The Coopster]

I think you're being too critical, especially if you are trying to compare them to the LOTR trilogy.

These book are on average less than 200 pages each. How involved did you expect them to be? And how could you expect that they would contain the same level of detail as the LOTR books, which are all at least 4-600 pages long?

At least you did read them, and your opinion is based on some actual knowledge of the stories. And since you didn't much care for the stories, I can't really expect you to enjoy the movie. I'm glad your kids liked it.