Lacking that bit of magic and sanity

Rating: 3/10 (7 June 2004)

I was very disappointed by the changes in this movie. There was unneeded scenes of Hermoine achieving "girl power" as Draco gets beaten up... there's no "magical" feeling and all the wonderful music of the first two movies no longer exists... really lame jokes such as beating Ron's cast were scattered through out. everyone looks more "hip" with modern clothes. If anything, Potter has been dumbed down to standard pre-teen movie jokes. This was mostly the first half of the movie. The first half very much rushed the scenes of importance and jumped around so much that a non-reader would be totally confused. Instead of adding things that were unnecessary the huge plot of book three could have had more time to let each scene be presented. The Shrieking Shack scene was wonderful for the most part... the "married couple" line was exceptionally amusing. Oldman and Thewlis were superb... sadly Snape has little character in this movie at all. The ending on the Firebolt really destroyed the feeling of this being an "epic" sort of story... lack of closure. So, if anything I can rave about Sirius and Remus but otherwise, I found much of the movie ridiculous and unnecessary and lacking. 6/10