Liked It, But It Could Have Been Better!!

Rating: Null/10 (25 January 2008)

OK, first off I know this is just another somewhat useless comment about this movie, but here it goes anyway.
This movie was good, not great, and could definitely have been better, and they wouldn't have had to make it extremely long to do so. Now don't get me wrong Davit Yates and the entire crew did a great job all in all, because everyone knew that there were going to be omissions from the movie. However, there is some content that should have made it into the film that didn't, such as Ron and Hermione becoming prefects; which could have been done with a relatively short scene and it would have kept more continuity with the books, and I'm slightly confused as to why Draco Malfoy seemed to suddenly drop out of the picture, when his character is such a great foil to Harry's. Why didn't Dumbledore conjure his comfy chair at the hearing, they could have added that and barely changed the scene, but it would have helped to set the mood and give everyone a better feel for Dumbledore's thought process at the time. Instead Dumbledore does not look as calm, nor nearly as cool, as in the book. I also would have liked to see the addition of Ron as Gryffindor keeper for the quiditch team, or the inclusion of any quiditch at all. They could of even only shown the tryouts to show us that Ron made the team and then not bring it up until Umbridge releases the decree about not having teams, clubs, etc. Another thing I would have liked to see (and I'm sure others would have as well) is the trip to St. Mungo's; even if they left out Lockhart and the closed ward, and just showed the Atrium and then Mr. Weasley's room. This would have helped to show everyone more of the wizarding world that they so desperately want to see...I mean isn't that why we all watched this movie in the first place? We hear nothing of Hedwig being intercepted, nor do you see Umbridge's hand in the fire after Harry talks to Sirius. These are all easy details to add, especially when they added scenes like the entire DA doing Umbridge's lines in detention...when did that happen? Oh, yea it didn't!! Or Fred and George consoling some first year about the scars on his hand, because that scene really added something to the movie for everyone (and if you couldn't already tell that was oozing with sarcasm). I also feel that they could have done a little better with Snape's worst memory, though I can see why the didn't use the pensieve, they could have made the scene better. And what the heck happened with the battle in the Ministry?!?!?! All of a sudden the Death Eaters are just apparatting and disapperatting everywhere and becoming just black vapor chasing the students....what happened to the fight?!?! And what happened to all the other rooms in the department of mysteries?, because it would have been cool to see all the weird stuff in there.
Now having said all that of course I knew, and expected omissions from the movie. It made sense not to include Marietta in much of the movie as her role was easily filled by Cho who is a much more established character, however it was nice to see that the pimples made their way into the film via Filch and his fudge. It's understandable that they didn't put in many scened from Grimauld Place (the cleaning scenes with the pixies, etc.) because they merely helped us to pass time and keep the reader engaged, but served no purpose in regards to the plot (with a possible exception to the glimpse of the locket horcrux, of which we didn't even know of while reading the book anyway). As stated above, the whole no quiditch thing kinda bummed me out, but did seem necessary to help keep the movie from becoming too slow. The exclusion of Neville's whole side story made a lot sense to me, though some are undoubtedly disappointed by the decision, it would have slowed the film down tremendously and would have been very confusing to everyone who only watches the films and does not follow the books. The same can be said for the omission of Firenze, as he has no loyalties to the plot at all. For those of you that feel that Fred and George got cheated out of their theatrical exit....they kind of did, but they got the essentials down.
All in all it was a good movie and was definitely worth seeing in theaters for all of the special effects. Finally, I just want to say that if anyone finds this useless, it because it probably is, but I had to get it off my chest and now I can eagerly await the release of The Half-Blood Prince to theaters.