my quickie review...
as a movie, that pretty much stunk. It was like... a relentless series of events. no time to take a breath and feel one way or the other about stuff that's taking place.
I still loved it, as I'm obsessed with the book and could apply all the emotion and character stuff from the books, but I was talking with a few other book fans on the way home from the theater and we kinda all agree that that migt have been REALLY hard to follow if you didnt real the book...
To be sure, the occlumency/legilimency storyline in the movie only kinda make sense... It's the main event in the book, but is never really even fully explained in the film.
I was sad to see the St. Mungo's scene go, but I get that... didn't advance the plot, so it had to go.
I was annoyed though that with SO MUCH story to tell they'd keep the sacking of Trelawney , but didn't bother to explain why it was important she not be fired... and that stinks. (Similar to have the Marauder's Map in 'POA', but not bothering to tell the history of it).
The biggest let down, was to have that scene between Harry & Dumbledore (one of the GREATEST scenes of the series) marginalized to about a 1 minute of screen time.
The reality: As we near the end of the series of films, there aren't whole plot lines that can be left out. Most everything is vital.
Im guessing we should expect one of two things for the last 2 films:
*Either we get 2 movies VERY similar to this one, where there is only a handful of brief moments in the movie aren't merely meant to push the plot forward...
*Or we get longer movies.
It seems like in the past, the WB has been against making these movies any longer, so we can hope for the latter, but we'll probably get the former...
Regardless, it was fun to watch, since I had all the background and knowledge to fill in blanks and understand characters' motivations as stuff. Because of that, this movie was entertaining. I just wonder what a person who has no knowledge of the books would say if they saw this movie.
PS: what could they have cut out, to make way for more character moments? I cant think of really anything.