Pure and utter crap

Rating: Null/10 (25 November 2004)

(spoilers) I resisted going to see this film in the theater because it is my favorite of all the Harry Potter books, and I didn't want to see it butchered. I only watched it because I got a copy free at the grocery store for buying 60 bucks worth of groceries that I would have bought anyway. So I finally watched it, and was horrified and appalled.
Where to start? At the beginning, because that's a very good place to start. The first thing we see is Harry studying under his covers-using his wand! He is not supposed to use magic outside the school, and here he is casually doing it! And this is just in the first minute of the movie! It just goes downhill from there. A miniscule and confusing plot line, lots of stupid and confusing add ons(why didn't they use that time to establish the plot and characters, instead of ADDING stupid bits on like the shrunken heads and choirs everywhere?)many, many ultra talented actors underused or cast in roles completely wrong for them, terrible special effects, no establishment of the necessary plot elements to carry the series into the next film, and large chunks of the story cut out altogether or changed in the most ridiculous manner with no logical reasons for it...I could go on, but I'll refrain. One example, though..Crookshanks, who is barely in the movie, steals the codes for the painting from Neville in the book and brings them to Sirius. He tries his best to eat the rat Peter or capture him. He is working with Sirius Black. But in the movie, the cat is barely there, and cut out of a pivotal part out by the Whomping Willow and in the Shack altogether. Why establish the cat in the movie and then never bother to use him?
The castle has indeed changed, as have the grounds. In the new Hogwarts, you have to walk down a steep hill to get to Hagrid's house. The castle itself looks like a cross between Mad King Ludwig's Bavarian fantasy castle, a Roman ruin, and an Italian villa. The forest looks like a California Redwood forest, not somewhere in Scotland. In the scene where the students are first meeting Buckbeak, they looked like they'd wandered onto a nature trail in Yosemite national park. I kept expecting a park ranger to appear and tell them not to litter or start a campfire.
People have commented that the young actors are becoming more established in their characters. That is correct-although those characters are completely different than in the books. Ron is a whiner, Harry a bitchy little twerp, and Malfoy a blubberer. When he begins to nearly sob when Hermione threatens him with her wand, and then runs away in terror after she hits him, i was snorting in disbelief and disgust. PUh-lease.
The werewolf was the worst special effect of all, although none of the rest were very good. It looked like a cross between a hairless dog and a baboon. The Dementors were pretty bad, too. And that spider that Ron conjured as the thing he feared most-I haven't seen a spider that bad since the giant spider puppet that Miles O'Keefe was fighting in Ator the Fighting Eagle. How could anyone spend so much much and end up achieving such awful and lame special effects?
Micheal Gambon's Dumbledore was just dreadful. He was even worse than Richard Harris, who appeared to be sleepwalking through the role. I have to ask-did all the cast split a keg of Robitussen before they started filming? Because everybody looked half asleep and bored. They weren't even trying to emote or put any depths into their characters. So most of the characters became caricatures of the ones in the books.
I, too, noticed the fact that all the kids wandered around in normal clothes instead of their robes. And I have to ask-why did Harry resemble a billboard for DKNY? Where was he getting the money for designer clothes? Correct me if I am wrong, but he had to wear Dudley's cast off clothing in the books. But he's walking around in the movie in nice clothes that fit him perfectly?
Sad, sad, sad. This was a pathetic film, and I am giving up on the movies altogether. And if the next book is as bad as number five, on the books as well. This is one fantasy series whose pixie dust shine is beginning to wear off.