How to turn in a great book into a bad movie

Rating: 5/10 (1 August 2005)

Many people have done it before, ruin a great book by making a film about it, but this is by far one of the worst book movies ever. I love the Harry Potter books, every single one of them has a sort of magic that's very rare, a magic that both kids and adults like. The movies on the other hand, are a totally different story.
The first movie was, well, OK, it wasn't bad, but it was no Lord of the Rings. The second one was a bit worse, but still, fun to watch, but the third, my god what were they thinking when making this movie?
My thought is that they took the book, took some elements from it, the ending, the beginning, and some other small things that affected the story line and rewrote a completely new book from there on, because almost everything has been done differently. Now this could be a good thing, if the book wasn't the best Harry Potter book and virtually impossible to improve.
So what has gone wrong you wonder, well, nearly everything. It starts at scene one, where harry blows up his aunt, the book didn't say she flew away and was never to be seen. And so it goes on, Harry doesn't spend weeks in London, now it's only a day, we don't see him, Hermione and Ron going shopping in Diagon Alley, and Harry finds out about Black in a totally different way.
And the trend goes on, most things changing slightly, but some major events changing big time.
One thing that probably annoyed me the most, was the ending, it sucked with a capital S. Harry get's his new broom and flies off. What, but didn't Black give that to him halfway his year, and didn't he won the quidditch season with it. Yes, but apparently not in this movie, in this movie there is no quidditch, except for the first match. In this movie, Harry is just scared of the dementors and that's the reason he's learning the Patronus charm. But why should he be, the dementors aren't allowed at school grounds by Dumbledore, so he has nothing to fear. I think they just wanted to squeeze the broom into the movie, and by doing so, ruining in ending.
Now, if the story was all that went wrong, that would be one thing, but there are so many things, bad acting, bad lighting, bad casting (Emma Thompson never convinced me as Trelawney), David Thewlis wasn't bad, but good no. The only one who really convinced me was Gary Oldman. I really saw him as Sirius Black. Of the three main players, Rupert Grint was the best, Emma Watson wasn't bad either, Radcliffe, how in gods name he became Potter will always remain a mystery to me. But this was his worst acting performance by far.
And so what do we have after 2 hours of film. Well, I really don't know, if you know the story line, the movie is entertaining, but nothing more than that, and if you don't know the story line, you never will, because everything is rushed into. It's a big book, and they fitted it in 2 hours, but that won't work. Nobody cares if it's a 3 hour movie, I didn't care with movies like LotR, and I wouldn't care with Harry Potter, even better, I'd love a 3 hour movie, but make it a Potter movie.
What the makers tried was to make a film both enjoyable for the Potter fans who had read the book at least once, and to the lesser fans as well, who had only seen the movies. And this movie is a disappointment to both. The real fans will see a ruining of a brilliant book, and the movie fans will see a movie without a storyline. I'm really sorry I have to rate a Potter movie like this, even more because the third book is still my favorite one. But that's how it is, hopefully part 4 will be better, otherwise they might try to get Peter Jackson to direct the movie, because otherwise, I have little hope.