HPFGU-Movie impressions of POA--spoilers

[Sherry Gomes]

Hi everyone,

Ok, I'd better do this first.

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I went to see the movie today with my best friend, her three boys, ages 10
to 14, and a friend of the boys.  My friend and I are in our 40's.  We were
all disappointed in the movie, except the boys' friend, who had not read the
books and so was unfamiliar with the story.  Here are some of our
observations.

None of us liked Gambon's portrayal of Dumbledore.  It just felt unreal and
didn't seem to carry off the character of Dumbledore.  We were all concerned
that the relationship between the marauders wasn't really brought out, or
even the fact that the marauders were who they were.  But that's been
mentioned here before.  The lack of the Quidditch cup was disappointing,
too.  And the Firebolt!  That was so important in the book with it being
confiscated and everything.  This way, it appeared that they lost the one
match, and that was it for Quidditch for the rest of the year.  We were also
disappointed that it was never mentioned why the marauders learned to
transform into animals, and that James was a stag.  It was also odd that
when Harry conjured his patronus at the end, it did not charge the
dementors, as it does in the books.  It was computer generated, so that
should have been easy to do.

We all agreed about the actors.  We thought that Hermione's character was a
little over the top, and Emma Watson seemed to be overdoing it a bit.  We
actually liked Dan's way of being understated in his portrayal of Harry.
Until they do a movie of OOTP, and we get into Harry's temper, that's really
how Harry is.  Unlike what some others have said, I like how Dan speaks his
lines.  Sometimes, when he is being interviewed, he can be a little hard to
understand, so having him speak clearly and kind of laid back is nice.
Ron's part seems to be getting smaller and smaller all the time, doesn't it?
We all wished we could have seen Snape lose his ever-present cool, either in
the shack or in the hospital wing!  

For me personally, I had a few different observations.  I am blind, so I
don't get a visual sense out of movies.  I felt the sound in this one could
have been better.  There were times when the dialog was hard to hear or
understand.  Especially, in the shrieking shack ... it had a kind of echo to
the sound, and it was difficult to hear what everyone was saying.  And I'd
be curious to know what people thought of the dementor scenes.  In the book,
whenever Harry is around a dementor, he hears the murders of his parents.
However, in the movie, we just get annoying music.  It didn't make the
dementors seem very scary to me without hearing what Harry hears.  But
maybe, that's just me.

However, lest you think we all totally disliked it ... we loved Buckbeak,
Professor Trelawney, Lupin and Sirius.  The moments between Harry and Sirius
were especially touching, as well as the scenes between Harry and Lupin.  I
loved how the twins still finish each other's sentences and speak the same
things at the same time!

Well, this has been way longer than I expected.  I am sorry.  Overall, I
enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was as good as the previous two, from a
story and plot viewpoint.  But then, as POA is my favorite of the books,
it's probably understandable that the movie just doesn't measure up for me.
I would like to go see it again, because I'm sure I will enjoy it more if I
do.

Sherry