Harry Potter Better Than Expected

Rating: 8/10 (7 June 2009)

Let me say that this is the first Harry Potter movie I've seen and I thought I was going to hate it. But I found myself having a good time watching it. If I thought the first three installments were going to be just as impressive as this one. I would've watched them before seeing the Goblet of Fire. The whole cast including Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson are great in their roles. The rest of the talented supporting cast includes Robbie Coltrane, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Emma Thompson, and Brendan Gleeeson who also turn in admirable performances but they lack screen time only showing up for brief appearances here and there. The pacing was a little slow at times too but the good outweighs the bad in this one. Ralph Fiennes does a decent job with the brief cameo role he has near the end as the evil Lord Voldemort. He's nearly unrecognizable and Fiennes definitely makes for an imposing villain but he like other characters lacks screen time. Besides the pacing the film seems to be juggling too many characters a problem some other movies have had as well (Spider-man 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine to name a few). With it's flaws aside though this Harry Potter is a good film to watch. It has intense action, cool special effects, terrific acting for the most part, and some humor thats sure to please any fan of the genre or the book. If you've enjoyed the previous films so far than chances are you'll like this one as well.