Lolita was the first Kubrick film I've ever disliked...
I assume the book is much better?
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Nabokov's tragicomedy Lolitas is one of the greats of 20th century literature.
Is it controversial? Yes, absolutely. Do you feel a mixture of emotions upon completion of it? Yes, most certainly.
I like Kubrick a lot, but no film can really do the novel justice. So much of the book is an intimate glimpse inside Humbert's memories and thoughts around the memories themselves. I think that is very difficult to portray in a film without the use of a 'narration' track and/or flashbacks. And that would then make for a very poor film. 
So yes, I would recommend reading it even if you didn't particularly like Kubrick's adaptation.
I have very little memory of it other than it appeared to be about Tom Cruise repeating everything said to him. Memories be funny things. Some day I might watch it again.
I liked Lolita but then I never read the book. I'm bad at comprehension. My teachers at school encouraged me not to read.
Guess I'm not as cool as I thought I was. 
Didn't hate it, just thought it was ok.
Had really high hopes, but initially found it boring and ultimately un-sexy... although, I've read some interesting analyses of it, and might go back and watch it again with the idea that everything that happens after their big argument in the bedroom is apparently his dream...
I kept thinking it couldn't really be this bad, that I must be missing something. I concluded it really was that bad. And worse.
I remember afterwards heading into the ladies room, and another woman turned to me and asked, "What was THAT?!?" I just shook my head and shrugged, "I have absolutely NO idea." 
I truly wanted not only my money back, but the couple of hours of my life it robbed me of.
After much thought, about what I had read about Kubrick hating "movie stars" and celebrity, about how for one scene he made Cruise repeat walking through a door into a room something like 57 times until he got it "right," that Kubrick was sticking everybody in the eye with that thing. He hated celebrity, so I figure he deliberately hired the biggest celebrity couple at the time for the fun and pleasure of torturing them while they twisted themselves into pretzels with joy and amazement thinking they'd now truly made it as serious "actors" while trying to please "the master." I remember watching Kidman in an interview during the promotional period talking about how the first time she just saw it and how shocked she was. I had no doubt she was shocked, but I think that while she was trying to pull of "shock and awe" for the interview, she really was just shocked and horrified at having been taken for a really bad ride.
He knew it would be revered by the critics for no goddam good reason, and smirked at producing complete garbage for them to find twisted reasons to swoon over. I think he was mocking and making fun of all of us, audience included. Which is fine, because I never worshipped him. I just went to the movie like most people, thinking he's supposed to be so great and this is his first time out in years, etc. And vaguely remembered watching 2001 after smoking pot for the first time in my life.
Aaaack. What a waste of celluloid.
He's a rapist, and being the unaware narcissist that he is, thinks that he loves Lolita and that Lolita loves him.
The blurbs on the original paperback cover said it was "a love story".
Well, it is not. It is a criminal attempting to justify his criminal actions.
I am not sure if some people got the idea that he is indeed a criminal and that there is NO justification for his rape of an underage girl, and his complete inability to have any empathy for the horrendous physical and emotional pain he subjects her to.
