We went to see Harry Potter today. It was a pretty good movie. It is however going to disappoint some people who read the books a thousand times. There is alot to fit into the movie and they moved somethings around to both make things more linear and to help those who haven’t read the books. In particular the Shrieking Shack scene is noticably shorter and not as dramatic as most of what you learn in the book during this chapter has been revealed in scenes leading up to this.

All in all good movie, good acting. The kids have really come into their own and are doing great in their roles. Snape (Alan Rickman) is just fantastic, so oily and bitter! The guy they picked for Lupin wasn’t what was in my mind’s eye but he played it well. The new Dumbledore was good but it still almost brought a tear to my eye to realize that Richard Harris is gone…

The new director changed some things most noticable to me was the sets. The castle seems smaller and more open, there was a lot more outdoors scenes as well. The Hippogriff was amazing CGI and Animatronics. So cool.

All in all I’d give this movie 3.5 out of 5 stars. Go see it cause you have to you just have to!