Solid, but uneven

Rating: 6/10 (7 June 2004)

I saw this with my family on Saturday. We all enjoyed the first two movies, and have read the book. The movie was enjoyable, parts of it were excellent, but there was certainly a feeling of deflation when leaving.
First for the best part of the movie, the new cast members, David Thewlis, as Lupin, Emma Thompson as Trelawney and Micheal Gambon as Dumbledore. Thewlis was excellent, showing a great empathy and friendship for Harry. The scene of Lupin and Harry on the bridge was perfect. Emma Thompson was spot-on as Trelawney, a role that had to be fun to play. Michael Gambon took over the role of Dumbledore seamlessly. Except for his first appearance, when I was specifically looking for the change, throughout the movie he was simply Dumbledore. Dawn French as the Fat Lady, was also fun especially for Brit-com fans.
The pacing of the movie seemed odd, and there did not seem to be the attention to detail that there was in the previous movies. Previous movies had you looking in the nooks and crannies for things you might miss, this one seemed more barren. The movie leaped from introduction to conclusion in a jarringly short time. It felt like it should have been about 30 minutes longer. I don't expect every detail from the books to be included, especially in light of Rowlings increasingly bloated prose, as the series has progressed, but we got very little "life in Hogwarts" and almost no real look at Hogsmeade.
The biggest losers in this rush to the finish line were two of the best cast characters though this series, Maggie Smith's Minerva McGonagall is almost completely absent, and Alan Rickman's Snape is only shown when absolutely necessary to the plot.
In the end, we gave the movie a 7, but it was much closer to sliding to a 6 than it was to an 8.