Great movie overall; 2/3 book, 1/3 What the heck happened???

Rating: 7/10 (11 July 2007)

Let me first say I finished reading book five for the second time just a few weeks ago so it's very fresh in my mind, and perhaps that affected me.
Yes, overall, I liked the movie! It has lots of action, and it was very entertaining. However, I felt it moved abruptly from point to point, and this could spell trouble if you're not familiar with the book at all. My kids, who've read only through book three, were constantly asking me questions about what was happening.
The biggest issues I noticed were:
1) There's a WHOLE LOT of material from the book which was left out, and much of it may have been rather important:
a) No St. Mungo's at all, and the whole thing with Neville's parents was covered in, like, two seconds. No Gran either.
b) No character development of Tonks. It's unclear why her hair keeps changing colors, for example.
c) The entire "final trip" through the Ministry of Magic was truncated considerably to basically just one room.
d) Where was Buckbeak?
e) Who were made Prefects?
f) No character development of Mrs. Figg
g) Luna, the Quibbler, and her relationship to the publisher were undeveloped
h) The sorting hat never sang its "new song"
i) Firenze never came in as the new teacher
j) The whole issue with Grawp was made to seem quite harmless
k) No O.W.L.s ever took place
l) The prophecy was shortened to remove the elements about the seventh month
m) no Quidditch which means the whole part about Ron's joining the team, Umbridge cutting Potter, and so on was eliminated
n) The Order never met Harry at the landing after the train ride home which would have been a fun ending
2) Somewhere along about the half-way point of the movie, it sort of took a turn away from the book enough so that I began asking myself what was going on.
3) The educational decrees were posted, but you could hardly read them; therefore, it wasn't very clear why they were there at all.
Like I said, it's a great movie, but it really helps if you've read the book first!