good for kids mostly, otherwise a snore

Rating: 4/10 (13 July 2007)

although the books have also gotten pretty crappy, lots of loose writing and characters that are made to be anything the author might need at the moment, the books are tight and finely wrought compared to the movies, in this installment of the Potter series, we get an older and darker Harry, as distinct from the older and darker Harry of the goblet of fire, we get indistinct adolescent urges, yet again, people doubting Harry's intentions, yet again, and so on, and to top it of, we have no idea why the little glass balls are so important, turns out they really aren't that compelling, weren't in the book either, the motivation for certain character action is suspect, why would Fudge so adamantly not want to deal with the rise of Voldemort, how could such a seemingly powerful wizard as Dumbledore lose control of Hogwarts, and then apparently fight Voldemort at the least, to a draw, and his reasoning for abandoning Harry is simply weak, was in the book too, the death of Sirius Black was confusing and lots of exegesis here that goes nowhere. Essentially, this was a boring movie with lots of empty atmospherics - and sadly, about what I expected, okay for a kids movie and thats not bad, but lets not think that this is somehow better than that