By Far The Best

Rating: 9/10 (25 July 2007)

I don't think I can even begin to describe what I feel about this movie.
So let me start by asking why the fans of the series can never be happy? It's either too faithful, cuts too much out, cuts out more than a smaller book, doesn't include some irrelevant plot point or another gargantuan helping of eye candy.
Don't get me wrong, this is a school of magic, so it stands to reason there should be quite a bit of magic.
However the story has to be there, there has to be a good plot.
Coming after the Goblet of Fire, the first time a relatively well known director has been at the helm, I was sceptical. This has been the first movie out of the franchise that has not only got a new director (David Yates) but a new screen writer by the name of Michael Goldenberg. I expected great things from Goldenberg, the writer of the 2003 film, Peter Pan, but Yates I was a little hesitant about.
Yet however the vision that these two gentlemen have bought to the screen has been magnificent. They've faithfully understood their source material and carefully crafted and re-worked a version for the silver screen that addresses the main plot points.
So I will say this once, yes, they have dispensed with a lot of the fluff around the edges. But brains in jars aren't important, neither is character development on characters you aren't going to see too much, characters who by all rights are cameos. It's called Harry Potter for a reason.
Unlike previous movies, this instalment is not disjointed and a pleasure to watch.