If you loved the book...don't see the movie!!

Rating: 2/10 (22 July 2007)

Unbelievable!! I want my money back. The best thing about this movie was the popcorn! And this is coming from a mom/grandma of a true-blue Harry Potter Fan Family! We have every book...every set of unabridged CDs...every DVD. We have read them all...watched them all...listened to them all while traveling.
Hollywood has taken an extraordinary work of fiction, stripped it of its heart and soul--then attempted to salvage their bland, watered-down, flavorless film with some flashy, banal special effects. When the film ended, I sat there, stunned, disappointed beyond belief. It felt as though I had just watched a long, drawn-out series of crudely strewn together trailers! Afterwards, other fans expressed their astonishment and incredulity at this weak, hollowed out film version of the book.
What were Goldenberg...Yates...Warner Brothers...thinking when they slopped nearly 900 pages into 2 hrs and 18 minutes??? Wouldn't it have been worth an extra hour to salvage the heart of this extraordinary book? Not only have they done a terrible injustice to Rowling's brilliant fifth book in the HP series, but the unbelievable stripping of key elements and fundamental, even crucial details turned this film into an incoherent, disjointed waste of time.
It was fun to see the characters growing up, but even they seemed a bit confused as they kept getting lost in the confusion of the film. As disappointed as I was with the movie, I had to do a gut check later to remind myself that the actors had nothing to do with the bad screenplay.
I hope that since Steve Kloves will be returning to do the screenplay for the sixth book. that he will be able to bridge the gaps in this mess to the Half Blood Prince and give us something as worthwhile as he did in the first four films.
Warner Brothers??? Are you listening???