As a long time fan of JDaTE I had followed the making of the movie for some time and was really excited that it was not only finished, but could also be streamed before it's even in theaters. Having known the financial constraints they had to work with and expecting some changes in the adaptation process I was still very underwhelmed after watching.
As a stand-alone movie, it's worth a watch - the acting is good, the effects are decent, and it's fun. As a book adaptation it's really disappointing. When it boils down to it, this is pretty much just random parts of the book mashed together with a lot of details (including some pretty major ones) changed to make it (kind of) flow together. Rather than take the clearly-defined first part of the book and loosely adapt it, they took the whole book as only someone with extreme ADD could read it then mash it together as only the same person could watch it. There is so much amazing material that was wasted here while simultaneously ruining any chance of a sequel that isn't as hacked together as this that I want to kick a puppy and cry myself to sleep. I almost wish they'd changed even more stuff (Bark-Lee and Amy NotHerLastName were a good start) and just totally disassociated it with the book - they honestly wouldn't have had to go much further with it and I could still dream of a real JDaTE movie getting made.
As a stand-alone movie, it's worth a watch - the acting is good, the effects are decent, and it's fun. As a book adaptation it's really disappointing. When it boils down to it, this is pretty much just random parts of the book mashed together with a lot of details (including some pretty major ones) changed to make it (kind of) flow together. Rather than take the clearly-defined first part of the book and loosely adapt it, they took the whole book as only someone with extreme ADD could read it then mash it together as only the same person could watch it. There is so much amazing material that was wasted here while simultaneously ruining any chance of a sequel that isn't as hacked together as this that I want to kick a puppy and cry myself to sleep. I almost wish they'd changed even more stuff (Bark-Lee and Amy NotHerLastName were a good start) and just totally disassociated it with the book - they honestly wouldn't have had to go much further with it and I could still dream of a real JDaTE movie getting made.