Too fast, Too cut, Too short

Rating: 10/10 (5 June 2004)

This is hard to post this, but I'm disappointed with the third film. Oh, don't get me wrong, the style, the acting, the mood, the intensity and visauls... all were simply awesome, best yet in fact! I was even able to get past some of the major discontinuities.
However, this film was paced too fast, almost as if everyone was over caffienated. All the scenes felt rushed. Very little was explained, too little detail, too many jumps from one scene to another - disjointed, not smooth.
I mean, the film went from fall to spring (as evidenced by the Womping willow dropping, and then getting its leaves back) in less than 15 minutes by the clock! Think about it, 6 months of the school year went by in 1/8 of the film!! Rushed, rushed, rushed.
They also changed the ambient "situationals" of several of the scenes, apparently all in an effort to get through this film as fast as possible.
And finally, I think the smoking gun, is this film is 15 minutes shorter than the first two films, yet the story is longer and more complex. Why did they cut out so much? What were they thinking?
No mention of Moony Padfoot, Wormtail?!!
From what I can tell, this film basically went from the highlights of every OTHER chapter.
Hopefully, upon repeated viewings this film will grow on me. But unlike the first two films, I walked out of the theatre feeling cheated. This film deserved to be 30 minutes longer. When the film came to an end.. my feeling was, "that's it, it's over?"
I think it obviously comes down to a combination of direction and editing. Was Alfonso on speed? Sure seems like it to me.
Hopefully, they will come out with an extended version at some point, assuming they filmed more critical scenes. Please oh please, lets pray they did!
Hopefully the new director, Mike Newell will do a better job for the fourth film, which is even more demanding of complexity, detail, pacing, and length.
P.S. Gary Oldman was brilliant!