Disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (20 November 2005)

First, let me confess that I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books, so my perspective on the movies is entirely based on the movies as they stand on their own. I've seen all the movies, though, and this was the first I felt was disappointing. Granted, I don't know to what extent the problems were in the book and to what extent they are problems in the film, but here are my thoughts:

It felt disjointed, almost as if it had started out four hours long and then they just whacked out some scenes. More than once I found myself feeling like "Okay, I guess we're done with that part" and wondering what I'd missed or what the point of a scene was. For example, the entire part of the movie starting where Hermione wakes Harry up, up through the scene where the damage is assessed after the Quidditch tournament, didn't seem to contribute anything significant to the story. As much as anything it seemed to be about impressing us with the Quidditch stadium. Indeed, it was impressive, but all that and no Quidditch? And then we just left it behind.

It suffers from something I see all too often in TV shows about teenagers, and it goes something like this: "Even though we've been close friends for years, I can't jump quickly enough to the conclusion that you did something so despicable that now I don't want to have anything to do with you. I'm not going to listen to anything you say and I hope you rot and get all you deserve you piece of slime." In this case it was Ron's reaction to Harry being in the tournament. I don't think I've ever seen a real human being act so immature -- though I see it a lot in shows about teenagers -- and I find it really annoying. I guess I didn't have the right friends when I was growing up because the ones I had weren't like that.

Could Ron Weasley be any more annoying? I can only assume that's the way Rowling writes him, but boy is he a loser.

Once he materialized, Lord Voldemort just didn't seem that menacing. I expected more from an "ultimate evil" kind of guy.

I was not impressed with Michael Gambon's performance as Dumbledore. I guess I was spoiled by Richard Harris' performances in the first two movies, but even so I thought Michael Gambon was better in the third movie than he was in this one.

Frankly, I don't think any of the kid actors are all that outstanding. Unfortunately, while they have some excellent talent for the adult parts, we saw very little of it in this movie.

The ending was lame.

The whole movie seemed dark, and I'm not referring to the themes. It was as if they were using an underpowered bulb in the projector.

After reading several reviews here, both positive and negative, here's what I've concluded: The people who think this is the best film of the series have read the book at least once (possibly many times) and don't need to rely on what's in the film to understand what's going on. Instead, they're just happy to see some of the book come to life on the screen. The people whose opinion is less than glowing almost always say something to the effect that important elements of the Harry Potter story were left out, and that would explain why there were several times I was left wondering about something. Those who have read the 5th book seem concerned that the next movie may have a tough time making sense to non-readers with so much left out of this one. Many comment on the lack of smooth transition between scenes at times, and I'd agree.
The effects were top-notch, of course, but frankly good special effects have become the norm nowadays. Even weekly TV shows have good special effects these days. With each passing year the CGI people can do more and do it better and cheaper than ever before. Ditto for the makeup departments. So while I enjoy special effects, it takes more than good effects to make a good movie.
While I don't expect a single film to show everything from a 700+ page book, I think a movie made from a book should still have a story that can stand on its own and I don't think this movie met that criteria.