It's as though all the happiness has gone from the world of Harry Potter...

Rating: 6/10 (11 July 2007)

Must be the Dementors' fault.
Having never read the books, I can't complain about things changed/left out and only judge the films on their own merits. I'd felt the series kept getting better, reaching its peak with 'Goblet of Fire', which I thought fonud the right balance between darkness/light-hearted fun. This film, however, I didn't find 'fun' at all. It got off to a bad start by including the loathsome Dursleys again (after blessedly skipping them in GoF). I also preferred how the last film started in the realm of magic, rather than the 'real world' like this one. Things didn't improve much when Harry was put on trial for using magic in front of his mush-mouthed cousin. Apparently magic trials are as boring as 'real world' trials. The only interesting parts to me were the visually stunning flight over the Palace of Westminster and the introduction of Nymphadora Tonks (who dislikes being called by her first name, judging by her tone/hair colour changing). Sadly, she disappeared after that. Mad-Eye Moody and Professor Lupin didn't fare much better, getting only small amounts of screentime.
Things improved slightly with Ron, Hermione and the intriguing new character of Luna Lovegood. Evanna Lynch gave an exceptional performance, stealing every scene she was in (talking about Nargles and hoping for pudding). I especially liked her bonding with Harry over being 'different' along with skeletal horses called Thestrals that could only apparently be seen by those who'd seen death (makes you wonder how freaked out the others were when flying on them if they couldn't *see* them). Unfortunately, Harry was at his most unlikeable this film. Being moody/angry all the time might've been the *point*, but it certainly didn't make for fun viewing (though I shared his frustration with Dumbledore/understood his sudden outburst after getting sick and tired of seemingly being ignored by him). Ron and Hermione's characters seemed a bit more 'subdued' this film than how they'd been previously, thus making them feel quite different.
Snape, who has felt underused for a while, got some focus when teaching Harry how to shield his mind from Voldemeort and it led to a flashback of young Snape being the victim of bullying from Harry's father, James. However, that doesn't excuse Snape's current attitude/behaviour towards Harry and his friends (talk about holding a grudge against the wrong people). While Lucius Malfoy gets his most screentime since the second film, this feels like the least amount of Draco we've seen. Meanwhile, we learn about the tragic fate of Neville's parents at the hands of the wickedly evil (and clearly insane, given the hair) Bellatrix Lestrange. When you need someone to play a nutter, get Helena Bonham Carter! She's quite fun, playing someone so evil. Sirius is back...but we don't get much time with him (nor does Harry, sadly).
Seamus Finnigan's brief falling out with Harry (who insulted his mother) hasn't much impact; Ron's brothers bring some slight 'fun' to proceedings, poor Cho Chang gets very little screentime kiss with Harry comes seemingly out of nowhere. When their 'relationship' hits the rocks, all you can think is "WHAT relationship?" due to it being given minimal development. Professors McGonagall and Trelawney are also sorely underused. At the other end of the spectrum was the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, (seriously, do some background checks before giving people for that position!) Dolores Umbridge, who I felt had far too much screentime, zapping whatever fun was to be had out of every scene she was in. She's every super strict teacher ever...only *worse*, because she also abuses students by forcing them to write things over and over again with a magic quill that scratches what they're writing into their hands. How wasn't she immediately fired? Wizard logic!). She's the absolute WORST. What's a School of Witchcraft and Wizardry without magic? Pretty damn boring. If Imelda Staunton's performance is to be measured by how much I hated her character...then she gets top points.
While it was nice to see the students going behind Umbridge's back and training for their oncoming 'war', as 'Dumbledore's Army', the sense of fun from the previous films was all but gone, I felt (the only part I really liked was seeing the various animals that the students' Patronus charms took the forms of). The first four films had this sense of wonder and blew your mind with the magical creatures and spells, etc. This movie was much more serious and had very little humour in it (and what humour it *did* have, I felt, more often than not fell flat). Some might like that fact, but to me, these films have always been about escapism and fantasy. Letting yourself be pulled into a world of magic and having a rollicking good time. As more and more of the real world merges with the magic world, we seem to be losing some of the more fantastical elements. Sure, there are spells cast in this movie, there's a dodgy CGI'd giant (the best part of that scene is Hermione showing it whose boss and Ron's protectiveness over her), there's duels involving wands (that more than slightly resemble the light-saber duels from the Star Wars films), there's centaurs and other things. I liked the 'Battle of the Department of Mysteries', and Dumbledore vs Voldemort allowed for some great visuals, but on the whole I just didn't feel the 'magic' this time around and that's why this is my least favourite film of the franchise.