Does not live up to the book

Rating: 6/10 (20 November 2005)

I am an avid Harry Potter fan, but I have to say that this movie did even come close to the book. I think it was in part due to bad directing. The beginning scenes zoom by and goes straight into the action. Anyways, this movie tries to stay very true to the book. Tries. Most of the important things and a few details are all in there, but it seems as though the director was racing to cram as much as he could into the movie, instead of focusing on giving it a sensible storyline. Each scene was given only cursory attention, even if they were extremely important. For example, lets take the Quidditch World Cup. We don't know where they're going until they actually arrive, and even then the name is only mentioned once. There is no quidditch action, it goes straight from introducing the team to showing the kids in their tent after the game. Even I was thrown off balance for a bit. Then, all of a sudden, there are these black KKK guys.
The entire movie goes on like this. It's just BOOM BOOM BOOM, one blast after another of isolated snapshots of the book. It's more of a slideshow than a movie, the "snapshots" seem unconnected in any logical way. I was able to follow the movie only because I had read the book well; if you haven't or read it a long time ago, it would be a very good idea to read it again before seeing this.
The special effects are nice though. The Quidditch stadium and the dragons are very nicely rendered, and are very immersive. Unfortunately, that the only thing I can think that stands out as REALLY good about this movie.