Somewhat rushing considering the length, disappointing

Rating: 7/10 (18 November 2005)

First of all, I'm a big fan of the HP books and have read them all. I went to this movie (with my children) with very high anticipations considering this was one of my favorite of her books. However, it was clear in the beginning this wasn't going to be that kind of movie that stuck pretty close to the book.
***SPOILER** First of all the quiddich (sp?) scene at the beginning was very, very limited with little reference. Also what happens next clearly strays from the book also. The plot was deviated from often with large chunks of information missing or nonexistent. The film seemed to skip along in order to give "pleasers" without actually telling the same story as the book.
Yes, it did stick close enough you could tell what was going to happen, but some very important information was not included or simply changed. The girls from Madame Maxine's school were never identified as being part vela (Fleur), the Barty Crouch aspect was misconstrued and the house elf was NEVER in the film at all. The miscues are too numerous to keep mentioning.
I even had my children asking questions after it was over trying to understand some of what happened. Thank goodness I'd read the book and was able to actually give them the real story. One more thing that irked me was how the maze was changed in the film.
Overall, very disappointing. Will I buy it when it's released on video? Probably, since I already have the rest. But it was definitely too hard for this director to incorporate a fluid story in the 2 1/2 hr film :-(.