Probably the 2nd best $180 million ever spent on a movie (SPOILERS!!!)

Rating: 9/10 (4 December 2005)

CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!!
Despite being a Potter fan, I felt quite happy with Mike Newell as director. Special effects would never be the challenge in bringing HP to the big screen. Rather portraying the humour and magic of the characters in the books would be problem. And Newell has done that very well in this film. The book is huge, both in length and density, as almost every character seems to get their own subplot! All of these have been cut, but the characters have been been woven into the main story effectively.
The result of this weight loss is the story races along and there is not a dull moment to be had. The great thing is that despite this we do get some nice comedy scenes (the pre-yule ball dance lesson, the Hagrid-Maxime romance, the bath scene). There has been much talk about adolescence, which was pretty much all talk in Azkaban. Here it is all much better handled. The Weasly twins shine again. Hogwarts also feels much more like a school, and less like a setting for a Famous Five adventure. Some of the adult actors are given a bit more screen time, which is wonderful because every moment is a delight. The Gleeson as Mad ex-Dark Arts investigator is particularly good.
The visual effects are incredible not only in themselves, but because they are used to tell the story. It is hard to say pick a favourite because the story never lingers on the amazing visuals to say to the audience, "Look at these pretty pictures I made". The story it just told and the audience is awed.
The movie isn't perfect. The pacing might be described as rushed, and I wondered during the first 40 minutes if a first time viewer might wonder why certain things were happening. The book's subplots give everything a a coherence that is there in the movie, but might be hard to catch first time. Not such a problem tough because it's worth 2 viewings for the visuals! Also though the "child", or rather young adult/teen actors, are generally good (Grint as Ron has a much better role in this movie, and does well), the intense ending did expose possible problems for later movies.
That said, the Voldemort rebirth scene, which is what I have been looking forward to since I first read the books, is quite spectacular, and the casting of Fiennes is perfect! Which leads me to conclude that all looks well set for Movie 5, The Order of the Phoenix, which should be easier to cut down to size. I am so pleased that instead of just milking the HP brand, Hollywood is actually trying the best possible movies it can with the material. Well done.