I believe that this movie does a great job in portraying the mystical aspect of the book and really plays on it by putting the right effects in the right places and right music to tone the mood. I would not say that either one is better than the other, but I will say that anyone who has either read the book or watched the movie should do the other because they play off of each other very well. The writer of this book is a genius in how he was able to include facts and keep the plot going without it being a history lesson and the maker of the movie is also one for being able to capture all of the aspects of the book and present them in an interesting and entertaining way.