Worst director in the Potter series

Rating: Null/10 (27 November 2004)

So many things were out of character, and definitely out of pace with the previous movies. I understand that it strays from the book, the whole movie series has a life of its own and it has been great so far, leaving enough surprises to be found in the books for those who didn't get to read them first.
Every character lacked identity for the first time in the series, which points NOT to bad acting, but to LOUSY direction. Dumbledore became the kind of school principal that everyone gets to hate too much instead of the wise old man he used to be, from his appearance, his lines, but most than anything his whole screen attitude. Same goes for professor McGonagall, and even Snape seemed less sinister and more fake than any other time.
And off to the main characters, Alfonso Cuarón once again managed to try and "Imprint" His personal style thinking he is larger than Harry Potter and all of the magic that surrounds it, he added that grim quality which turns every single one of his movies into a "want to make art even if it spoils the movies", he gave Harry, Hermione, and Ron a "bitter" teenager quality that simply didn't fit. It was amazingly overdone and obviously he tried to hard, there are moments of brilliance among so many lousy embittered moments. Hermione lost her charm, Harry lost his cool and the feel he has in the books, and Ron came out as a completely "gray" character and Cuarón relied way too much in his "pouty" kind of performance, which in the previous films Columbus managed to make feel natural.
Malfoy became just a cartoon in this movie, no opposition whatsoever and even his annoying nature came off out of character and fake.
The story is really good even when Cuarón managed to make it a story with very little explanation which made it hard to follow at the start in his attempt to be "faster" in building suspense than Columbus did. Columbus is an artist and a magician in this sense, you don't need such hectic scenes to make a movie get off to a good start, Cuaron instead tried to give it a caotic and frantic kind of beginning which fell so very out of place.
I'll buy the movie as well, since it's magically saved by the storyline, but it was a huge mistake to select this "wanna-be artist" director who is all the time trying to glofify himself at the cost of a very expensive, very awaited and very good movie.
All in all it gets a 7 out of 10.