hardly worth seeing

Rating: 4/10 (22 July 2007)

As a huge fan of the Harry Potter series, both the books and the films, I came away from watching this film feeling extremely disappointed. From the moment the first scene appears, you can tell that it is poorly directed. The scene showing Harry and Dudley running away is filmed in such a modern, snappy, messy way that you wonder what film you are actually watching. The camera shots used are nothing like the ones in the other films, which makes it distinctly different.
As always, the plot from the book was changed, but not in an effective way. There were too many scenes where Harry was snapping at people, and with Ron and Hermione casting worried glances at each other, but never talking to each other about it. Snape's occlumency lessons were not explained properly, and the people I went to see the film with had never read the books, and failed to understand what on earth Snape was doing to Harry. Cho and Harry actually have a relationship in the novel, but in the film all they got was a snog and a few seconds of muffled conversation.
The most annoying aspect of the film was how everything was crammed in as though the actions of characters weren't significant enough to take up a large amount of time. For example, the whole beginning of the film happened so fast; with Harry getting expelled, the Dursley's leaving, members of the Order coming to pick him up, flying to Grimmauld Place and the hurried explanation of the basic plot. Nothing flowed properly, but a large amount of time was wasted on close-up's of Harry's emotionless face, panting at the camera. Ron and Hermione barely had anything to do with the plot, and probably only had a dozen lines to speak between them.
Many of the events of the film were not explained properly; such as the dismissal of Trelawny, which should have been a more chaotic scene - it seemed as though the actors were improvising on a badly written script at times. And the Weasley twins did not explain why they were escaping, or where they were escaping to. Sirius' death was an extremely badly portrayed subject, as it seemed Harry didn't even grieve for him, or mention him again in the film.
Even if you haven't read the book, the film doesn't break any hearts or convey any emotion. It's far too focused on amazing stunts and scenery rather than conveying the story to the audience. The explanation of the prophecy at the end left many people in my cinema bored, and the whole message of the book was explained at that point. In my opinion, the book is a million times better, and I can only hope the films improve from now on.