** 1/2 Star Rating Review

I give the film 'The Kite Runner' a two and a half star rating because I felt as though it did not capture the richness that the book did. There was a large chunk of the book that was cut out of the movie that made the book so good. As hard as it is to follow a book with a movie the director did not do their job in capturing the message of the novel.
While the movie captured all of its plot points, I felt that it captured none of the richness that made the book so wonderful. It just didn’t work for me. Very little was changed, but the things that were changed made little sense: for instance Assef was not the pedophile making the speech in the stadium in the film as he was in the book, which to me lessened his impact in the film. Also, the film left out the part when Soharb tries to kill himself and how they have to stay longer in Afganistan because they can not get Soharb a visa to the U.S Lastly, while the book at many references to the poverty the film did not capture the living conditions and what the people had to go through with the Taliban. The film did capture all the plot points, yet it didn't seem to develop in a way the book did.
As a critic I would recommend to only see this movie if you have not read the book. After reading the book, the movie did not speak out to me the way the book did.
** 1/2 Star Rating