Hello... plot? Are you under the invisible blanket?

Rating: 5/10 (30 March 2007)

My girlfriend is a huge Harry Potter fan, so she eventually roped me into watching this cinematic train wreck.
Let's start with what I liked, first. Solid opening scene, good special effects, interesting fantasy elements, and sometimes funny dialog. Now I ask fans to hold their breath. I did not like this movie.
After the first quarter of the film, where it has been pointed out with a BIG NEON SIGN that the big bad uber-evil Wizard that everyone is so afraid of they refuse to speak his name, is returning from pseudo-death. Then, for some psychotic reason, the movie decides to forget about this imminent threat to the universe and instead show us poorly written, badly acted, and horribly uninteresting high school soap opera complete with a freaking prom. Maybe this is a hit with the middle school crowd, but even still, you can tell the actors themselves are thinking "what the hell IS this about?" EVENTUALLY, everyone remembers (a touch too late) that the evil "you-know-who" seems to be making his way back to life through foreshadowing and not-so-subtle hints, but now we're caught up in a life or death competition where Harry Potter has been illegally entered, and set up basically as bait to lure out Voldemort and/or his henchmen. Well, when the big bad DOES finally make his move, the powerful Wizards completely fail to notice, or even remember, that Voldemort has taken the bait. A confrontation between Harry and his nemesis ensues, whereupon the young hero through the power of love from his dead parents, or some such nonsense, just barely makes it away with the corpse of a fallen Hogwarts student. So what happens now that everyone has absolute and undeniable proof that the most evil force ever has returned? They go on summer vacation. Right, nipping off on holiday, I'm sure he won't destroy the world until next term. From start to finish, this movie had me on the edge of my tolerance. I'm being generous with five out of ten here, but only because I feel there is the POTENTIAL for a good movie in here. Someone just needs to slap around the director and scrounge the cutting room floor.