The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first of three films based on J.R.R. Tolkien's 1937 children's book, opened late Thursday night in theaters across North America.

All the most dedicated Tolkien fans, the ones who have followed every step of The Hobbit film project since it was formally announced five years ago, have likely already seen it.

Should you? Critic Richard Roeper doesn't seem so sure.

Watch Roeper's review, above.

Director Peter Jackson's three Lord of the Rings films, based on Tolkien's three later books set in the world of Middle Earth, were released to great popular and critical response between 2001 and 2003. They earned more than $3 billion worldwide and became for the sword-and-sorcery genre what the Star Wars films were to science fiction.

The main problem, as Roeper sees it, is that The Hobbit was one book, not three, and, as a children's book, lacks some of the depth of its more adult-friendly sequels. The movie version of The Hobbit was first announced as two films, but last summer, Jackson announced that The Hobbit would be stretched into a third film. Roeper feels that one film would have sufficed.

The sequels, which incorporate supplemental material that was written by Tolkien but was not part of The Hobbit novel, are expected in December 2013 and December 2014.