One of the best

Rating: 9/10 (18 August 2019)

As for me and many of my friends this is one of the best of the series.
It is the first movie with a new Director after Chris Columbus directed the first two and is also the first with Sir Michael Gambon as Dumbledore replacing deceased Richard Harris.
So Director Alfonso Cuaron is faced with the reality of providing continuity for the much beloved series while having to blend in a new actor for one of the primary roles. The other reality is taking the third book which is approximately 150 pages longer than the first and 100 pages longer than the second and keeping it within a reasonable length without cleaving too much. He accomplishes this while trimming run time by approximately 15 minutes.
Again, each movie has to undergo the often harsh reviews of faithful readers who have their own ingrained bias regarding how the film should have portrayed characters and scenes. Having watched the movies before attacking the books I can say that I have my own feelings on how well these transitions were accomplished. However, having seen the movies prior to reading the books, I was free to judge movies as they are...movies.
The last thing I will add is just a personal note. I felt the performances of Ekow Quartey and LeeIngleby to be magnificent. In Ekow's small speaking roles he delivers each convincingly and in my opinion greatly portrays the severity of the issues at hand. Lee, who i remember from "Master and Commander" does a great job as Stan Shunpike. Sometimes these small roles enhance the overall movie viewer's experience and theirs certainly did for me.
As I have stated, to me and many others as evidenced by the ratings, this is one of the best.