I have read the books but haven't watched the movies out of fear they won't follow the book and fudge it all up for me. I was told that wasn't the case and that I needed to watch them. Now with reading that first paragraph I don't know. "Modest rewriting".......does that mean it know won't follow the book?
The movies are epically bad. Absolutely terrible. Simplistic. Neutered. And Kat-tits is cringingly badly acted. Well, all of it is terribly, terribly acted -- trite, clichéd, hackneyed, emotionless, flat, dismal. It's pablum with a "message." It's like a really bad Twilight with a bow instead of fangs.
The movies squander a butt-load of decent talent. Woody Harrelson looking for all the world like he wants to kill his agent for getting him into this morass, Elizabeth Banks who is normally hot but makes some terrible career choices (seen Meet Dave? or Zack and Miri?), Stanley Tucci, Prince wannabe Lenny Kravitz, a slumming Donald Sutherland and the aforementioned Hoffman.
The only one that has any screen presence that doesn't involve a Cat In the Hat hair nightmare is Jena Malone and even she is forced to recite some of the most eye-roll worthy dialogue any human could imagine.
The movies are just bad, bad, bad.