Actually, I think being truer to the books was their downfall. I was impressed that they tried that, but in their attempt to fit every scene and every bit of dialogue from the books in, they sacrificed cinematic pacing. It was like they were hurrying through a checklist, rather than actually translating it to the screen. You had to have read the books to keep up.

Two-Flower's understanding what was going on was a little disappointing--not to mention how he would actually become the one to RESPOND to a crisis. But I thought it was overall pretty good. (My biggest disappointment was that they left out the afterlife bridge party, actually ...)