Decent, but no where near faithful to the book.

Rating: 6/10 (24 July 2007)

First of all I want to slam the people who automatically vote 10's and 1's all the time, like its the greatest or worst movie of all time. I'm sorry, you should really see a lot more films and you'll be surprised that there are better and worse off films than this.
*Potential Spoilers?* OK. Now to my honest opinion. The movie was was "meh". Looking at it from a stand alone film, its typical Hollywood eye-candy. I'll admit that a lot of the stuff, such as Grawp, that are still pasty-looking and totally unbelievable, but it gets the point across, which I guess in the end is what really matters. With the fighting towards the end, is a bit lame, just people flicking their wands around with a CGI blast following it. The definitive CGI was in the duel towards the end between the great powers.
Everyone is complaining about the movie totally being watered down, and unfortunately it's too much. Being the shortest film and the longest book, that just doesn't correlate well to the screen. Along with being the shortest, I believe they could have thrown in more detail and still be fine within the usual 2 and half hour time limit. There are many minute details left out through this movie that, because they left them out,the following movies are not going to translate even worse.
The acting is what you can expect from any Potter film. However, as everyone has been saying that Umbridge steals the show, and she does... I about instantly started hating her and wanting to stick that quill, fill in the rest. Otherwise, no real gripes with performances.
Somebody commented on the fact that Hogwarts which seems almost too massive in other films, seems to be all of 2-3 rooms in this. I would just think that you would want a tad bit of continuity of atmosphere. Another subject being the Ministry, which I believe was fairly well done and looks rather believable. *End Spoilers*
Overall this movie lacks in plot, and timing, but makes up for staying on track for the most part and the acting. Not the best Potter, but it conveys the story to move it along.