not a great movie, but a good companion to the book

Rating: 7/10 (21 February 2008)

This just did not work as a movie. Being a fan of the books and having read all of the books I am quite familiar to the world and the storyline. For those who have never read the books though this movie is a mess of story lines that just does not make sense. Having read the books and this one being one of my favorites, it was a great movie because it showed things that I loved to see. Luna Lovegood was perfect and was more perfect than I could have imagined. That little actress was so good I could not believe it. I really felt for the character and thought of how great it would be to have her on your side. The wizard battles were totally awesome, but could have been longer and showed some more action. I wish I saw the statues come to life in the last battle like in the book, but they did not. The statues looked better in the movie than I had pictured, but they did not spring to life. I don't want to say none of the kids in the movie can act, but I think they were just given with some pretty weak material. The only reason this movie gets a 7 and not a 6 is because one of the best characters in the book came to life in a such a way I could not imagined. A really big beef I had with the movie was that they left out my favorite scene in all of the books. The one where Neville is with his parents in the hospital grounded the whole world and gave the kids something to fight for that everyone can relate to. There is no destiny involved with Neville's character and he did not deserve the life he was handed. He deserved to have the loving parents that were taken away from him and the movie almost ignores that part totally. Neville was turned into my favorite character in that moment and now he just another silly kid who has a reason to fight, but we aren't able to see into his character like the book let us. Like my summary says it is not a good movie, but having read the books it was really nice to see the world we have come to love.