I almost left

Rating: 2/10 (23 July 2007)

This is the only movie that has ever made me consider leaving in the middle. If you have read the book, do not see this movie. It leaves out the most important things in the book, and adds others that are entirely unnecessary. For example, Ron and Hermione's promotion to prefects is left out, Harry, Fred, and George's banishment from quidditch is left out, and pretty much the whole department of mysteries is left out. This was my favorite book in the series, and I was looking forward to this movie more than any of the others. Now I feel cheated. What should have been an amazing display of action and character building turned into a confusing and unreliable portrayal of the book. For those who haven't seen the book, many characters are added without explanation as to who they are or what their importance is. My friend, who hadn't read the book, came out of the theater with many questions that could have easily been answered with adequate directing and screen writing. I'm sure taking an 800 page book and turning it into a two and a half hour movie is hard, but the amount of things left out was not worth cutting time. The only reason I didn't simply get up and leave the theater was because I was looking forward to the battle at the department of mysteries. I figured that the reason so many things were being left out was so that the end could be accurate and full of the interesting things that were in the book. Unfortunately, I was wrong, and I came out of the theater wishing I had never went in. No thumbs up for this one.