Lives up to its Dark Reputation

Rating: 7/10 (1 February 2013)

By January 2013 I had never read a Harry Potter book or seen any of the movies. I decided to start with the movies.
Certainly lives up to its reputation of being darker than previous entries to the point where the whole experience of watching the film is rather depressing. However, it's a necessary part of the journey (did I really just use the "j" word?) that Harry must take.
Interestingly there seems to a greater use of London as a location and the capture and impersonation of the three ministry workers adds to the greater connection with the muggle (I hate that invented term) world. The alienation of Ron for a central portion of the film works well both as a distancing device and to better bond him with Harry and Hermione for the final battle to come. There's a very cheesy section of Harry taking Excalibur from the lake – sorry, I mean the sword of Gryffindor which again highlights how freely the series has borrowed from other sources.
This was the only film in the series where I felt I was missing something having not read the books. For instance it wasn't clear to me what chasers were and most bafflingly why Dobby seemed to be such an important character after his absence from most of the films