To each their own. I'm personally a big Dune fan, but could never get into LotR, so it all balances out.

Book is much slower than the movie (have not seen the second one yet), but I think it doesn’t make it any less interesting.

The world setting and story are still very interesting

In a lot of ways it is the LotR of sci-fi. It laid the foundation for a lot of things that follow, like Warhammer 40,000, but at the same time is not especially well-written. You have to appreciate it as something halfway between a good book and a piece of the history of fiction.