Disappointing, but how could it be otherwise?

Rating: 5/10 (22 November 2005)

I mean, these books are so crammed full of character and incident, how can they possibly be adapted to a two or two and a half hour film? I think the screenwriters did a better job with the last film--I never felt lost or saw gaping plot holes. This time, there's so much stuff that needs to be introduced and new characters to take the stage, that it just feels rushed and incomplete somehow. The whole first hour or so is primarily exposition and is so sketchy that those who aren't intimately familiar with the books might be lost. The movie takes too long to get going and when it finally does warm up and get exciting, blink, and it's over. I'm not one of those purists that thinks every little incident and character mentioned in the books has to be translated to the screen, but I think they might have tried to do too much this time out. We've got a very busy movie that doesn't really have a strong narrative arc leading through it. Again, I much preferred Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to this muddled mess, though it does have its strengths, notably Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody and Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort. Next time out, they're going to really have to work harder on a screenplay that streamlines and clarifies the story, or else they're going to have to go the other direction and give us a three-hour movie.