No Surprises, Unfortunatel

Rating: 6/10 (10 March 2006)

At 41, am baffled to be so intrigued by a set of "children's books." I mean, my tastes run from Shakespeare to Raymond Carver. Right now, I am reading "Les Miserables." These books are truly amazing.
Unfortunately, despite the gee-wiz(ard) effects, the movie is sorely lacking in almost all the elements that made the book impossible to set down. (I remember when it was released. I read it in almost one sitting). There is all the action, of course, but none of the drama. Where is Harry's frustration? It's as if the story were so big and unwieldy to convert to film, that all the major elements were only "paid homage" to. For instance, Cedric and Cho Chang. What happened to them? We see her crying at the end of the movie, but after a couple of hours, there wasn't enough story to make me care!
OK. To be fair: as a movie, it does work. It is highly entertaining, action packed and because of the previous movies, they don't have to work too hard to get us to care for the main characters. It's a good film, but compared to the great work it sprang from, it falls far short.