Excellent although flawed - contains spoilers

Rating: 8/10 (28 November 2005)

An excellent adaptation, with the necessary darker feel to it from the first two films. The cast keeps improving with each film, although Daniel Radcliffe still struggled with the emotional outbursts - "He was their friend and he betrayed them" a little cringe-making. Also, Draco was far too afraid too quickly of Hermione in the fight scene - good punch though. I don't think this was a fault in the actor, but rather a fault in the direction.
Most of the film was a joy - I especially liked the change of location - Scotland has never been more beautiful. The look of the film was definitely an improvement on the earlier ones, enjoyable though they were. More excellent performances from the adults but sadly the teachers still didn't have enough to do. I would have preferred a little more of Snape that's for sure - Alan Rickman is always watchable.
The main flaw shared by the first two films was too slow a pace and too many schmalzy scenes with the three leads grinning at each other and giving long looks to camera. This has all gone (thankfully). Also, the plot was a lot pacier and exciting. David Thewlis made an excellent Lupin although it might have been nice to see a little more of Snape's hatred for him and why - especially as there is some clue as to why he hates Harry so much. There were hints of "just like your father" but no explanation as to how awful James Potter and Sirius Black had been to Snape during their youth.
Also, although I greatly enjoyed the look of the film, I was rather sad that the kids were not in their robes. It is often commented in the books that Wizards don't know how to dress in muggle clothing and tend to look odd, even when not in robes. The fact that they all dressed normally tended to make a nonsense of this.
The PoA, even though very enjoyable, had SERIOUS plot holes (no explanation as to the identities of the authors of the Marauder's Map - "Moony (Lupin), Wormtail (well we know that one now), Padfoot (Sirius Black) and Prongs (James Potter, Harry's Dad) or of why they had these nicknames (they were all animaguses (animagi?) apart from Lupin and had all trained to become one out of deep friendship so that Lupin would not be alone when he was in his werewolf stage) and these were descriptions of their animal identities - Prongs was a stag padfoot the black dog and wormtail the rat) and, consequently, no explanation as to why Harry's Patronus was a stag (like James Potter as Prongs) or why this was the main reason he thought his dad had summoned the patronus to save them). This was the worst plot hole imaginable in what was otherwise an excellent third film. These quibbles aside - a truly enjoyable film of what is still my favourite book. - Not as good as Goblet of Fire though!