Book3 was my fave book, but.... (Spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (7 June 2004)

Well I want to start out by saying, this is a constructive criticsm of the movie... not saying it was horrible. I did kinda liked it. but here are my criticsms.
1. OK not even 2 and a half hours? only old people will small bladders have a hard time sitting through that, so you could make it a tad longer.
2. take out the whomping willow segways if you have to, to give a little more time to good scenes from the book.
3. Character development was shotty. Remus and Sirius are my favorite characters from the book but they didn't have nearly enough screen time. It was almost like the two big characters from the third book were just afterthoughts. Thewis was doing great as a sincere and understanding Remus, and his moments on screen with Harry were touching, but just when you start to get a feel for him, his screen time is over. They should have had more about the werewolf thing too. Some of the bantering between him and Snape, with the wolfsbane potion and stuff. Just to throw in one scene of the werewolf for the sake of having a CGI moment was just sloppy work on the writer's, director's parts. Thewis and Oldman proved with what screen time they had, that they could do it right... so they should have gotten better parts.
so the character development was VERY VERY disappointing. Sirius even more so than Remus. And the absence of MacGonagel, Dumbledore and Hagrid... even Snape had a lackluster part this time around even though in the book they all had entertaining scenes. That was disappointing.
4. Come on... one class with hagrid? Give me a break. Hagrid's a cool character. he deserved on screen time.
5. When hermione said "I trusted you!" to lupin, it didn't make sense. He had little screen time, and she had almost NONE with him. Harry should have said it. It would have made more sense.
6. There just should have been more Ron and Hermione, crookshanks and scabbers.
What I liked, it was visually cool, the actors were great. The kids are getting better, and for all my hemming and hawing, for what screen time they had, I liked Thewis and Oldman as Lupin and Sirius. Buckbeak was cool, but there was just something missing.
It was missing that spark that Chris Columbus gave it. It is missing some of those special moments from the book that warmed our hearts to Lupin and Sirius making us want more of them. It was missing the best "cat" fights between Ron and Hermione. It was just missing. I say
***.5 out of ***** stars. I'd see it again, I'd own it, but I hope for great deleted scenes on the DVD to make up for what was lacking on the big screen. Best of luck to the new director for movie 4. Hopefully you won't be afraid to test our bladders so we can actually get a STORY in with the CGI movie.