My Review (Quite long)

[Penny & Bryce]

Hi --

Well, I've now seen the movie 3 times in something like 36 hours. 
Considering, I have a 6 mth old daughter, I'm quite pleased with this. 
I'm also quite indebted to my husband.  :--)

I don't even know where to start.

I have all the things other people have said swimming in my brain. 
Okay, well ... here goes.

DAN -- I think I have to start here.  I *LOVED* him!  I thought he was 
superb.  He conveys *so* much with his eyes, and I don't give a damn 
what color they are.  I know ... I know.  I was the one who, for the 
last year, has been insistent that he had to have green eyes & how hard 
could that be.  Well, we learned recently that the green contacts hurt 
his eyes.  My guess is that the green eyes done with computer touch-up 
didn't look very natural, and so they scrapped it.  Fine by me.  He has 
gorgeous, expressive eyes just as they are, thank you very much.

I was always very insistent on cosmetic things that seemed easy to me 
... green contacts (or computer touch-up) & dyed hair.  Now, my feeling 
is that he was perfect as he was, and I could care less about cosmetics. 
  As for the hair color ... his hair looked quite dark in some lighting, 
very med brown in sunlight.  Fine.  They did dye Felton's hair & the 
hair of the Weasley twins was dyed from their natural brown.   So ... if 
Dan's hair wasn't dyed, my guess would be that he or his parents vetoed 
the idea for whatever reason.

He was perfect.  Absolutely positively perfect.  I assume his accent is 
a very posh upscale London accent?

[ACCENTS -- I'd like to see if our British friends would like to 
identify the various accents for us.  Rupert's for example ... I can't 
place it.  Emma is from Oxford, yes?  Neville sounds Irish (and of 
course Seamus).  *loved* Biggerstaff's Scottish accent.]

I loved Rupert in the chess scene (see below), but I thought Dan 
actually had the shining moment in that scene with the "Don't move! 
We're still playing," followed by "Checkmate," which was just absolutely 
perfectly done.  :--)  Suffice to say, I loved Dan's performance.  He 
*is* Harry.  They made the perfect choice.

moving on ...

RUPERT - This kid was fantastic.  Very, very, very good.  I thought his 
comic delivery was very good in almost all cases.  Ahem.  I didn't think 
he *stole* the scenes though.  Maybe because I'm a huge Harry fan (and 
*not* a Ron fan).  But, he did a phenomenal job & was at his best in the 
chess scene without doubt.  I also liked "Good thing we didn't panic" 
(which seemed to me, given his delivery style, a more than adequate 
substitute for the much-missed "Are you a witch or not?" line).  He 
comes off much better in film than in stills or interviews.

EMMA -- Sorry, Barb, but I have to disagree strongly.  I liked her.  We 
have to remember that PS/SS Hermione is bossy & a know-it-all.  She's 
supposed to be grating.  She grates on the boys on the train in the book 
after all.  I thought her rendition in the train scene was very good for 
that reason.  She was considerably more exasperated in the movie than in 
the book as someone else pointed out.  And, she is, I concede, the 
weakest of the 3 main kids.  She overplays some bits ... definitely. 
But, part of it is the script.  Her line about going to bed before they 
come up with some other thing that may get them all killed or worse, 
expelled doesn't work in the context of where it was given [anyone else 
notice we went from clearly mid-day flying lessons to some other class 
where Harry & Ron are discussing Quidditch to Hermione dragging the boys 
off to see the Quidditch awards to Fluffy to "I'm going to bed ...."? 
Hello ... how did it get to be *bedtime* there?]

SHIPPY STUFF -- Just briefly (really!) ... my inner H/H shipper (to 
borrow Cassie's phrase) is quite pleased.  Quite, quite pleased.  Yes. 
Hug or no hug ...there was some nice interaction over Ron's inert body 
in the chess aftermath.  *grins at Cassie*

And, yes, I agree with Cassie.  Harry completely ignored Ginny at the 
train station.  Didn't even look at her or register her presence in any 
way.  As an aside, yes, Ginny looked about 7 or 8 to me.

OTHER PERFORMANCES -- Alan Rickman was superb!  (hi Amanda!).  I never 
doubted that he would be ... but he surpassed my wildest expectations. 
And, yes, I very much agree with Amanda's assessment of his emotions 
while muttering that counter-curse.

McGonagall was nothing short of perfect.  The friend I saw all 3 
showings with was a bit leery of Smith, not sure she'd bring the 
requisite warmth to the role.  I was confident she would, and she 
certainly delivered.

Harris ... not nearly as bad as I expected based on preliminary reports. 
  I think the problem was the script.  His best lines were cut or 
mangled in some way.  My husband is *still* muttering about how they 
could possibly do this movie & *NOT* include the "to the well-organized 
mind, death is but the next great adventure" line.  He sorely missed 
that line.  I think Harris did bring some warmth & heart to the role ... 
much more than I expected as I said.  He doesn't have the twinkle & the 
humor that we all love & like Luke said, even if the script called for 
it, I'm not sure he could deliver.  But, I didn't hate this as much as I 
was prepared to do.

Coltrane was very good.  Not much to say there ... pretty much what I 
expected.

John Hurt!!!!!!!!!  Wow.  *That* scene was very, very well-done.  I 
pictured Ollivander being a mite creepy.  Hurt made him so much better; 
he's still a mystery but he's not creepy & slightly sinister.  I loved 
this scene alot.

Sean Biggerstaff -- Oh man.  Not much to add here other than I agree 
with all assessments so far.  Um.............*more* Oliver Wood in CoS!

Tom Felton -- a very good Draco, although way too cute.  He is, I will 
note, a very, very good Draco to be part of Cassie's Draco fanfic 
series.  I turned to my husband after the credits started to roll last 
night & asked him what his favorite part of the movie was, and he, 
without hesitation, grinned & said: "Draco."  This from the man who 
uniformly tests out as a Slytherin in all those personality type tests & 
who looks disturbingly like an adult Draco.  Gah.

THE SCENES

I thought the first 1/3 or 1/2 of the movie was entirely too choppy.  It 
really doesn't hang together too well until the last parts IMO.  The 
editing was simply terrible.  My husband & I both think if they'd simply 
bit the bullet & made it a full 3 hours they might have been able to 
save some of those horrible segues.  They need to listen to the fans: 
the length is not a problem.  Just do what needs to be done so that we 
don't have more of the horrible jumps like from the Dursley's with 
swirling letters to raging storm on Hut on the Rock.

I think they did an adequate job of conveying the miserableness of 
Harry's life with the Dursleys without giving us too much Dursley.  My 
husband would have liked to see the Dursleys developed more.  I think we 
had enough Dursleys.  We were talking over dinner tonight about how 
perfect the Dursley house was.

Diagon Alley was splendid!  My husband declared that to be the best 
sequence & best set.  I liked it alot too.  I missed Madame Malkin's & I 
think the Draco scene would have worked better there.

The purist in me did hate that Harry went to Hogwarts on August 1st 
apparently.  :--)

Some of the best lines from the twins got cut.  I missed the whole scene 
at the train station.  On a cosmetic note, Percy *should* have had glasses.

Yes Barb -- I too noticed the very strange re-alignment of seats at the 
Welcome Feast.   Why would Harry move?  Especially in between Percy & 
Hermione?  Esp. since in canon Hermione is talking to Percy during that 
meal.  I do note, however, that they did seem to seat Harry next to 
Hermione & on that side of the table for all scenes in the Great Hall 
(anything H/H there?).  :--)

The flying lesson scene -- loved the Harry & Draco interaction.  They 
did a great job of showing visually what Harry tells us in the book: his 
exuberance at finding something he could do well naturally.

I disliked that we have the sense that Hermione is on good enough terms 
with the boys prior to the Wingardium Leviosa lesson; it weakens the 
Troll scene.

The rearrangement of things, on the whole, does not work particularly 
well or is downright confusing or horrible.

The Troll was okay.  I love the "sheer dumb luck" line by McGonagall. 
You will all be pleased that I will refrain from noting what my inner 
H/H shipper observed in this scene.

Quidditch was superb!  It was fast.  It was hard to keep up, and it was 
slightly blurry (probably intentionally, eh?).  I kept trying to focus 
my contacts to no avail.  I would have liked more Lee Jordan commentary. 
  I liked this alot overall.  The stands were not as I pictured in my 
head, but I like this image better.  :--)  I think Daniel did a simply 
wonderful job of conveying how much that victory meant to Harry.  That 
grin on his face at the end says it all.  I smiled at the "surfing" scene.

Mirror of Erised -- I like the book version better.  This was less 
emotional, which is strange.  Perhaps it was because James Potter was 
absolutely wrong.  Too old; didn't have the right look.  Lily didn't 
exactly look young either though.  The Dumbledore warmth was left out of 
the script so we didn't even get that.  Trina -- the "bloody hell" line 
actually didn't bother me at all -- seemed in character for Ron at that 
moment.  I don't think that is a particularly strong expletive in the UK 
though either.

Christmas morning -- I missed the twins & Percy & the snowball fight & 
the feast.  Sigh.

The invisibility cloak was just wonderful -- not quite what I pictured 
but better.  Really, really well done.

Forbidden Forest -- What's with the "Dark Forest?"  Why change that? 
This was a pretty weak sequence overall.  I liked the foursome though 
... yes, Heidi, Draco can join in.  :--)  I didn't like the centaur.  I 
think they could have scrapped the ghosts altogether & allocated that 
special effects money to making the centaur better.  The dialogue here 
was not as bad as others seem to find it.  It wasn't great ... but not 
horrible.

The transition from the exam discussion to Harry confronting Hagrid 
about Fluffy was atrocious.  Absolutely horrific.  We get no sense of 
what made Harry suddenly think about this.

The tasks -- Great!  All of them were just wonderful.  They really 
expanded Devil's snare nicely.  As I said, the "Good thing we didn't 
panic" line more than compensated for the omission of the "Are you a 
witch or not?" line.  Okay, here goes my inner H/H shipper again. 
Anyone else notice that Hermione says "Trust me," and Harry immediately 
falls through to safety whereas Ron gets even more entangled?  ::wicked 
laughter:::

The winged keys scene was improved.  The chess scene was nothing short 
of amazing.  Loved all of it!  I'm running out of steam if you can't 
tell .... you'll all be relieved (if anyone is still reading that is...)

The final confrontation scene was great too.  Interesting that they 
showed Quirrel disintegrating.  It was okay ... but an obvious Columbus 
touch IMO.

Hospital scene -- better from Harris than I was expecting.  Would have 
liked more but this was pretty good.

Pre-dinner scene between the Trio: heh, heh, heh.  That is *all* my 
inner H/H shipper will say on this score.  :::sweet smile:::

Leaving Feast -- My husband thought this was far less dramatic than in 
the book, and I have to agree.  They should have spent a bit more 
screen-time on this one.

My final thoughts for tonight: a big thumbs-up overall!  It's not the 
book ... it can't convey the richness of detail & complexity to the 
extent we might all like.  But, it's a very, very good movie overall.

Penny