Good, but not great

Rating: 2/10 (27 October 2008)

Personally, I choose not to recommend this film for anyone who is a die-hard fan of the Harry Potter series. OK, Richard Harris is dead. Condolences. But Michael Gambon did a terrible job as Dumbledore in this film than in the third. Seriously, someone bring in a better cameo. The film was rather rushed. They didn't really follow the storyline completely and made this a disappointment to J.K. Rowling's adaptation. Why are they making Ron shaggy all of a sudden? The classic use of the school, the characters, the lighting, and such has been lost as compared to what was used in the first two films. I was surprised to see that Brendan Gleeson was chosen to play Mad-Eye Moody, but the bad thing about this character was that they had to use a holder for his eye instead of just using special effects and enlarging his actual eye. The Yule Ball was OK. The introductions to the other two schools were OK. The dragon-fighting sequence was the only best point in the film. They made it more extensive, which was good. One character that I thought they were going to bring back was Dobby the House-Elf, because he was re-introduced in the book. The maze sequence was bad, mainly because the players were only attacked with lively leaves than the monsters that they encounter in the book. Most of the plot was missing, the acting was terrible, some of the action sequences were bad, and I was disappointed to see that no special features were added to the DVD edition. I didn't like this movie (or the third, or the fifth, and I am sure that I'm not going to like the sixth or seventh). Not entirely a proper recommendation for all you fans out there, but I guess you'll enjoy whatever suits you. I really don't know.
2/10