I thought it was good as a movie but the book was so much better

Rating: 8/10 (30 November 2005)

I really did like the movie in just a plain "I'm just going out the the movies" sort of way. I thought there were a lot of scenes that were extended and to make is seem more dramatic and because of that they had to leave out very important parts of the book. Some of the things I missed were the opening scene with the Dursley's; everyone sitting in the top box at the quidditch cup and seeing Winky and Draco in the same box; Ludo Bagman was also a large part of this book and he was also left out; I missed seeing the rest of the Weasley family (Bill and Charlie); there wasn't very much time spent with Hagrid or in any classes; the whole Crouch story line was messed up too; and that there weren't any of Hagrids monsters in the maze. So that is that for what they left out. As for character performances I thought overall they were pretty good. I thought Dumblebore seemed way to aggressive toward Harry. In the books Dumbledore is very calm, well spoken and so impressive but the way he was portrayed in the movie was loud, aggressive and somewhat scary (he is not suppose to be scary!!!) A couple last things that I did not like were Barty Crouch Jr.(what was with his tongue, it drove me nuts the way he kept sticking it out) and the way they should the use of floo powder. I think I was just too hyped up for the movie and I expected them to add much more from the book. I have went twice now and the first time it was with someone that had never read the books and they asked me questions through the whole thing and the second time was with someone who had read the book but a while ago and they were confused on some to the scenes of the movie too. Although I had to realize that they were never going to get all of the major aspects of the book in a movie that was 2 1/2 hrs long. Anyway like I said earlier, overall I liked this movie and I think it was much better then the the 3rd movie. I think it helped when they added the comical scenes (Flich and Fred and George were great!). I would definitely recommend it to others and I can't wait to buy it on video.