Much better than early reviews had me expecting. I was fine with most of the changes from the book, simply because it would’ve been difficult to translate the suspenseful moments to the screen without taking a lot of time to build tension. And there’s too much plot to get through for that, what with the duel timelines. I preferred the character of Malorie as she’s portrayed here to the Malorie of the novel, since we also didn’t really have time to let her character change over the course of the film.
The most significant change for the better from the source material is John Malkovich’s character. The book paints him as almost totally unsympathetic & without merit, but here he’s just a person who’s sometimes at odds with the rest of the group, but whose motivations are understandable.
One last thing - I haven’t seen Sandy B in anything in a while, & I was upset to notice that her face is looking a little immobile. I wish actresses wouldn’t feel pressured into getting filler, etc. They must know it limits their expressiveness. How sad that they consider it a fair trade-off.