Humorous, But Hard To Follow If You Haven't Read The Book

Rating: 6/10 (17 December 2007)

If you scan the first hundred reviews of this movie on this website, I think you'll see the words "disappointed" and "disappointment" more than any other adjectives. I, too, found it the same. I have not read any of the books, but I've seen - and enjoyed - the four previous movies, so I expected to full enjoy this one.
This film disappointed me because (1) - I felt the story was nothing I could make a lot of sense out of, since I hadn't read the 800 or 900-page book. If one didn't read the book and knew this story, it was easy to get lost about a number of things in here. The screenplay was "choppy," hard to follow in spots. Some of the things, like the death of Sirius Black, happened so fast I didn't know exactly what happened. This was just too uneven and rushed to keep us non-HP readers interested, story-wise; (2) - Harry wasn't the nice little kid throughout most of it, and he admitted it - that he was angry most of the time. Well, I agree, and he wasn't fun to watch, as he had been in the other films. I am used to a good-kid HP, not an angry teen; (3) - His two closest buddies, Ron and Hermione, looked like they mailed in their roles, especially Ron who looked like he was half-asleep during the film. (Maybe he was pouting because he had so few lines, who knows? I wouldn't blame him, frankly.); (4) I get tired of filmmakers giving us the rebel-as-hero and authority figure-as-villain. Enough is enough on that theme, which is so heavy-handedly presented here it becomes ludicrous. (5) If you are going to have a major villain, SHOW him, don't hide him for 99 percent of the film, which is what they did here with Voldemort.
On the positive side, I DID get enjoyment out of all the little special effects, many of which were humorous and always fun to watch. I got a kick out of many of the new faces in the film, and it also was fun to see some characters we had seen only in perhaps one previous film, such as Emma Thompson's teacher role. I also thought the music was outstanding: the best I've heard in the five Potter films. I wonder how many others appreciated it in here?
All in all, it was visually fun to watch and hear, as all the HP movies have been, but the story was just not entertaining as much as the others.