Good Movie, Phenomenal Book!

Rating: 7/10 (14 July 2007)

The movie was OK. It was rushed and choppy from the beginning to around halfway through the film. The second half, in terms of editing and pace, was a lot better.
Overall, the thing that irks me most is that the movie didn't convey, to me at least, the feeling of dread throughout the book. Of all the books in the Harry Potter series, OoTP has to be one of the darkest. Granted there were some scenes that were hilarious, it seemed much too comedic for my taste because laughter broke out almost every 10 minutes.
The actress who portrayed Professor Umbridge did a very good job with what she had to work with. She came off more, however, as an annoying teacher rather than a totalitarian dictator that I perceived her to be in the book. There was never a person who could garner so much loathing from me than did Prof. Umbridge after having read the book that after seeing her portrayal in the film just didn't do her justice.
Ron and Hermione (Grint and Watson of course) did very well in terms of acting but seemed much more as secondary characters that the film could have very well done without them. The bond of friendship and loyalty that most readers know of among the trio has always been an intriguing part of their story. It seemed like their on screen time was always somehow cut short that there was hardly any character development.
In my opinion, this was Daniel Radcliffe's best performance so far. He's improved leaps and bounds since Sorceror's Stone. The final fight scene with him on the floor trying to fight Voldemort from controlling his mind caught me off guard because it was for the first time that I had felt emotion for his character. Great performance.
There were many scenes cut from the book but it's understandable because of the time limit. They could have extended it to 3 hours because time flew by quickly as it seemed that I was only watching for one hour after having left the theater. The extra 30 minutes that would have amounted to 3 hours would have smoothed the transition for several scenes or possibly could have added another scene or two to explain events more thoroughly.
The movie is worth seeing at least once. My main complaints are above but other than that it was still enjoyable to visually experience what only our imaginations as readers could have seen when reading the books.