This movie, like the other Harry Potter movies, has the books at heart, and a strong focal attention to the core of telling a great cinematic story. The visuals are compelling, dramatic, and well formed. The dialogue is plotted, acted extraordinarily well by such young actors, and extremely believable. All of the characters are coming into their own.

Even having read the book twice, the revelations are still surprising because of the execution, the imagining of all the things I’ve only had in my head for years is a great delight, and I found myself, as I have at the end of the last three, eagerly awaiting the next film instead of being discouraged.

Is this book something special, like, say, a Star Wars? A Lord of the Rings? No. I believe that the best part of Harry Potter is and always will be the books. Much like, though I get kicked for saying this, I believe Lord of the Rings wasn’t that great of a series of books, but through Jackson’s eyes they became something truly magnificent.

Every great series and phenomenon has an UR motivation. George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and JK Rowling, for instance. Are the Star Wars novels the Star Wars movies? No. Is Harry Potter on film the book? No. But can it evoke the same feeling? Can it draw you in and give you a great time? Heck yeah, and that’s what this movie does.

Voldemort is incredibly well done. They got him much less Snidely Whiplash then I pictured him, but regardless, it’s still a great rendition.

The Tri-Wizard Tournament is also well done.

All in all, a pretty darned good story.

  But not a faithful adaptation.

This movie, perhaps necessarily, cuts a TON of the great character drama that makes the book so much better. Cho is glossed over. Kreacher doesn’t even show up. The movie skips the Dursleys. The movie doesn’t touch blast-ended skrewts. Fleur has one line as opposed to being a major character, as does Krum. You don’t really know Cedric, because he’s on the screen so briefly. The Weasley Brothers and the purse from the Tri-Wizard Tournament is ignored.

All of these things are important to future movies, and they’re glossed over here. Hagrid’s past, his lineage. The whole story is very, very abridged to fit into the time constraints.

Financially, it doesn’t make any sense to make an eight hour movie. I concede. I’m not trying to say they should have. But I still wish they had. You think they’d lose money, or make money, on dividing the movie into two parts? My guess is that they’d make money, and they’d do the story much more justice. Kids won’t sit still for three hours, generally, so if they can for this movie once, they can do it twice. If not, they’ll still kill on home video.

I say that yes, it will be easier and faster to see the movie at this pace.

But not necessarily better.

Abridged or not, the movie is still a great experience. Would I buy it? No. I have the books. Is it worth seeing in the theater once? Heck yeah. It’s fun, it beats most of the crap out there, and when there’s so little reason to actually get butts in the seats that work these days, go for it. It’s a fun little watch.

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