My two cents on the movie. Defanently the best one yet. Spoilers!!!

Rating: 10/10 (20 November 2005)

I am a huge fan of the Harry Potter books, there one of my favorite series. I cant say the same however for the movies, the first three i thought were...OK...but there was never the magic so to say that i saw in the books. I always wanted a little bit more from the movies. This movie however i feel broke that trend for me. When i first thought about them making this book into a movie my first thought was how the hell are they gonna pull that off. I honestly think that they did. There approach to this movie was to cut out a lot, and focus on the huge parts, i love the small parts of the books but i realized that they couldn't make that into a movie without it being 97 hours long, not that i would complain to sit threw a 97 hour long movie. They even managed to cut characters roles by combining their role in the book with other characters in the book. I.E. Doby + Nevil. Although i wish that the small stuff could have been put in, i think that the result without was great. I think that it would have been acceptable to add 20 minutes to the movie to make each task just that much longer, but i know that the typical movie audience wouldn't want that. I think these kids are really starting to get good at this whole acting thing. Nevel for example, man was i impressed by that kids acting, he had few lines in the movie, but man did he get to me.
I have never heard of the director, and I'm going to do some research on him because i absolutely think his techniques were incredible. Most directors forget all the simple stuff, the stuff that cant be done by computers and that no one notices but really make a difference. The really elementary ideas of cinematic effects. I believe this director mastered it, i noticed a ton of things that were so simple they were beautiful. for example the use of water, i.e. tears on the window when it was raining, or the water running past the gargoyles mouth when it was raining. This director had such a different approach to the movie, some parts i thought was almost UN-desired, but most of it i loved. i love it when a director goes to the bottom of the bag and uses all the tricks he can think of. thats one of the ingredients to make a good director.
there were only a handful of complaints that i can make about this movie. There are two parts that i think are essential to the books point that weren't in the movie, the Triwizard tournament, i mean the actual game. Also the hospital scene when you find out about Nevil's parents. and see the stupefied old dark arts teacher, not to mention Mr. Wesley and his "muggle cures." Also i think some of the acting in the beginning was a little over acted, i.e. Mad-eye moody. I also thought that for the first 1/3 of the movie the score of music didn't really line up like it should have, this is sad because i always loved the harry potter scores. Finally i believe the ending should have been like in the book. The book had one of the most intense endings ever. the movie did not, it just kinda ended in the happy note. The book ended with the...oh crap, were in trouble, chaos is happening...feeling, when Dubledore sent Hagred out with his new love to "do what he has to" (we find out in the 5th book that he is trying to get the giants on the good side) and Dumbledore sends Snape to spy on Voldemort. then the book ended. It was one of the most "holy crap" "what happens next" end of the book i have ever read. The movie didn't do that to me, i feel that it would have helped the movie a lot more if it did happen this way. Also it would have lead into the 5th movie very well.
I love also that they allowed this to be PG-13, it lead room for more to happen, and i hope that if necessary (from reading the books it is necessary) to increase this more in the future, it leaves them with more breathing room to make things the way they should be, not to mention it kinda follows the fans as they get older. I think that this was one of the best moves in the production of this movie.
I really hope that this director stays on board, he did this movie better than Christopher Colombus (director of the first two) and i thought he did damn well. This director blew me away. He pulled off the impossible, and hopefully he stays with Harry long enough to pull off the yet even more impossible.
This movie was hilarious, dramatic, suspenseful, and damn right jaw drooping its a 5 star movie if i ever saw one.
I recommend reading the book before you see it, i think if you read the book, and realize that it is OK that they left so much out then you will love it. If you don't read the book it will still be good, but you wont get the same effect because there is a lot of stuff that is in there but isn't described like it should have been.