Confusing, rough, less colorful, less magical in the series

Rating: Null/10 (2 June 2004)

A harry potter fan (movies only), it is disappointing to admit that this time around, the film disappoints in a big way. Gone is the joyful and colorful and humorous tone to the harry potter world. Instead, we get cold, dark, unnecessarily serious treatment this time around which would not have been entirely bad had it not stayed just that for the movie's duration. Then, there's the element of roughness. Continuity seemed to have been sacrificed for a supposedly faster pacing. It felt chopped at many points in the story and significantly felt dragging at other points in the story. It felt as if the director and scriptwriter didn't know what to do with the characters anymore, worst, with the story. I could not begin to imagine if this all may be due to the inevitable fact that the characters have grown so much or it was a different director this time around or what. And yes, about growing up, I do feel the actors/actresses do not fit their characters anymore.
The story itself has a lackluster climax, if there was any. No significant build up of tension here. You did not actually care if they all zapped each other out into oblivion in that odd-looking moving tree's interior. The exposition of mystery or secrets was unforgivingly monotonous dosed with just mediocre acting. There were a generous display of spells and magic but the magical feeling itself is gone. It felt less enchanted than the previous 2 films. Once again also, as in the previous films, the Hogwarts staff are portrayed as stupid mistake-prone people you'd wonder if the students even learn anything at all from their professors! A lot of harry potter fans who read the book are disappointed because, they say, the movie was not really reflective of the book's story. It's fortunate that I haven't read the book, else I would be doubly disappointed then. It's also fortunate that each installment of this harry potter series gets a new director. Either get Columbus back or give this to Peter Jackson to save the deteriorating quality of the harry potter movie franchise before it outlives its magic. A big disappointment. Can wait for the vcd/dvd...