Retarded

Rating: 1/10 (14 March 2015)

This stuff is retarded. There is virtually no plot. Half the film is filler and the other half is meaningless action. Moreover, the film demands that the audience knows the name of every single protagonist (of which there seems to be an endless supply) and remember everything they have done and said in the previous films. Basically, unless you are a hard core fan who has watched all the films several times and read the books, you will be confused time and again. This film is not shy about introducing a new character every five minutes. Do we need this many characters to tell a story about a magical kid with glasses? The characters are so numerable that virtually every British actor has been given a role. I thought by the end that they might run out of people to cast.
What else is wrong? Well, the same things that have been wrong from the start of the franchise. The tone is all over the place, shifting from ridiculously childish to failed attempts at serious drama and dangerous encounters with sinister antagonists. I am sorry, but you do not fight an evil prince of darkness riding a broomstick and waving a magic wand. It does not work. It is ridiculous.
The second problem is the magic itself. Too much magic removes all the magic from the film. If anything is possible, why do we care? Sooner or later some form of deus ex machina will save the day.
Furthermore, there are inconsistencies. The protagonists can teleport themselves when they want, yet they travel by train all the time. They can go back in time when they need to, but forget they have that power when it can come in handy. In general, protagonists can forget they have certain powers when the plot needs them to, or they can produce new powers at will when the writer is too lazy to get them out of the jam some other way. This is extremely irritating because it blocks the involvement of the audience. Basically we are left as passive observers who wait for some contrived solution to save the day.
Finally, the film is not emotionally satisfying. The ending is prolonged and convoluted and basically this final film in the series loses the rhythm completely. My guess is that the screenwriter was too eager to shove every plot point from the books into the film, and thus sacrificed the cinematic experience for the sake of not leaving out anything from the story. This is poorly adapted material.
There you have it. Why so many people kept watching this mess is beyond me.