My vedict on the movie:

It is not a great movie, it varies between decent and good. The consensus(even among people unfamiliar with the original work) is it had the potential to be a great and epic(the tidbit and glimpse of what the movie could be was quite tantalising) sci fi adaptation.Still , many believed it to be it is a good enough adaptation of a rather unfilmable book(it would take a miniseries or an anime adaptation to properly do justice to the source material).

If you're an avid sci fi fan or looking for a relatively intelligent two hour long movie I would recommend this (although it pales in comparison to the book of the same name) .For fans of the book ,you're obligated to watch this even though many of you would be less than satisfied(unlike the people who went into this unaware of the book) with this adaptation, I know I did.