I just read the first two books this past week, and I was quite impressed with the writing talents of the author, young though he may be. However, I think there are a few understandable flaws in the book. It lacks real emotional drive, and it never evokes a sense of passion. It's characters are well envisioned, but not well explored--he definitely knows how to describe how things look, but none of his characters have any real depth--they are rather shallow, and the momentous events he creates lack the necessary emotion to make them real. Also, I don't like many of the pseudo-intellectual messages he sends--I think he's trying to hard to a ppear mature, and as Gandalf said of the dwarves, he digs "too greedily and too deep." Plus, they are too predictable (I had the outline of the second book in my head before I even started it).
Nonetheless, it is a remarkable achievement for somebody at this age (he's as old as I am now, 22). I just wish he hadn't been so eager to emulate Tolkein's elements; he just doesn't have the massive amount of experience that made Tolkein's books so utterly complete. It's a good start; I'm sure his later works will be fantastic. I think it is great movie material; in fact it might be better in film than it is as a book. It should be interesting.