Beautiful Film, but Soundtrack Found Lacking

Rating: 9/10 (16 December 2008)

I would like to reiterate every single word that Kingtrio9 said in her review. Best acting yet. The movies, like the books, grow and mature as their characters do. Single complaint--the soundtrack. Nicholas Hooper fails to provide much of a canvas for the movie to play out on. Sometimes the moments of silence are fitting and dramatic, but they happen too often. The Harry Potter theme, John William's "Hedwig's Theme" is played only 2 or 3 times in the movie and it is never the original--it is a Hooper adaption. Most of the background music sounds like mischievous tinkering. It doesn't do justice to any Harry Potter movie, but ESPECIALLY one as serious as this.
He fails to capture the pure magic orchestrated by John Williams in the first two films and the medieval mystery he wove into the third, as well as the dramatic, sweeping, epic feel provided by Patrick Doyle in The Goblet of Fire. One exception--the end scene in the Department of Mysteries; there I must say, "well done."
Let's hope he gets a bit more creative for the next films!