Not as good as it should've been

Rating: 3/10 (19 November 2005)

******spoilers****** I guess the Harry Potter movies hit their peak with Prisoner of Azkaban--which had the benefit of being the only one thusfar to have a director with actual talent and skill. A director good enough to keep the audience from noticing what a poor scriptwriter Steven Kloves really is.
The plotting and pacing in this is really poor; the script itself as an adaptation as weak--as an actual movie it is utter drivel. There are individual lines that are good, but which worked better in the trailers (and which, unlike the movie itself, I actually liked). The script is written entirely to fans who are already familiar to the plot (with minor explanations never coming about, and are sure to confuse anyone who hasn't read the book). And for those of us with the benefit of actually having read the book, many details just felt heavy-handed.
Two of the worst things about the movie lie in the characterization (or lack thereof) and the all the illogical changes and additions. I didn't care much for the first two movies, but I don't think I have ever felt more emotionally unattached to these main characters--which is even more tragic considering the fact that Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson are the best they've ever been. The interpretation of Moody was not at all to my liking--too physical and juvenile for my tastes--and my high opinion of Gambon's Dumbledore from PoA has diminished. I'm afraid they're already past the point of some of the best characters ever being what they are in the books (like Dumbledore and McGonagall).
What's worse is that they took precious time that could've been better devoted to characters and instead decided to extend it for the silly action sequences I had hoped we left behind with Columbus finally pulled his claws out of the series. The first task is extended to a stupid fight in which the "dragon" (though not really a dragon, because it was actually a wyvern) chases Harry to the castle and we have painful moments of watching him hang from an upper turret of the castle trying to get back to his broom--before they fly off and go over a cliff. There's a similar addition in the second task involving Harry being attacked by grindylows (I think that's what they were) that was wholly unnecessary and felt like it was done because someone was having too much fun playing around with special effects. And a lot of other additionally scenes--e.g. McGonagall teaching the students how to dance--ultimately served no purpose and did *not* need to be there.
Overall the movie was stilted, and cuts from scene to scene illogical (there was almost no linearity to it--it felt like a series of scenes cut together that have little more in common than the fact that Harry is in every single one of them) and my opinion of Steven Kloves and Mike Newell (who already brought us the dreadful Mona Lisa Smile) could not be lower. Other HP fans will say it's great--and they're welcome to their opinion. But I still would recommend to people--anyone, HP fan or no--to *not* waste your money on this movie. It is, I'm sad to say, the worst of the series thusfar.