I read the LOTR a few years before the films were released, so I naturally compared the Fellowship film to the book, and felt that it was a decent adaptation. However, when The Two Towers came out I had largely forgotten the specifics of the book, so it was like rediscovering everything good about the book in the cinema without all of the boring bits. It was one of the most impressive films I’ve ever seen, from a technical and adaptation perspective. After realizing that I didn’t remember much of the Two Towers, I read the trilogy again in preparation for the release of ROTK. Of course, the sky-high expectations largely ruined my enjoyment of what I’ve come to see as an acceptable conclusion to the trilogy.
About verbosity: I’ve heard plenty of times that Tolkien isn’t a particularly concise writer, but that is a mark in his favor for me, since he intentionally mimicked epic stories like Beowulf. The Lord of the Rings feels like an epic history written in an ancient time, and I’m glad that Tolkien didn’t make his writing more accessible for the average reader since I think this quality would have been lost.