Pros:
- Luna Lovegood was excellent.
- Neville was pretty good.
- Daniel Radcliff was better than normal.
- Dolores Umbridge did a great job, even though visually she is very different looking that the description in the book, she has the personality down to a tee.
- Fred and George
- Ginny was a pretty bit part, but the actress did a very good job. Looking forward to more of her in the next movie.
- Filch was also good.
Cons:
- Extreme plot variances. The small ones were okay, but there were a few large ones that bothered me a bit.
- Grawp and Hagrid
- Dumbledore. I think the first actor had the character down better; the one in the more recent films isn't quite the same as the book Dumbledore.
- And these characters did not receive nearly enough screen time: Sirius, Tonks, and Bellatrix. Amazing actors who did fantastic jobs (well, not so much Sirius in this film, but I think that was mostly due to the lack of characterization of Sirius allowed by the constricted plot) in their roles and were on screen so very little. I also missed quite a few of McGonagall's great scenes in the book.
Overall, I think the flow felt better than the last movie, which says a lot, considering how much book they had to fit into 2 hours. It's hard to step away from the fact that it's my favorite book and look at the movie slightly more objectively, but it's alright for what it is.
Tomorrow I might post a more thorough, spoiler-full review. We'll see how tired I am.
Goodnight all.
