This adaptation of the fifth book in the series is a decent addition to the Harry Potter film franchise, sitting somewhere between the best so far (Cuaron's Prisoner of Azkaban) and the terribly earnest and plodding Chris Columbus' pictures at the start. Considering the massive length of the original book, great effort has been made to prune the storyline to a manageable movie run time, and the abbreviated plot in addition to the choppy editing gives it an uneven episodic feel, a chain of scenes without enough connection between, and causing some scenes to drag as they lacked the necessary urgency and drive towards the next. The setting is beautifully filmed, as always - Hogwarts portrayed amongst misty moors and plunging ravines in different climes - but Yates resorts, a few too many times I feel, to ending scenes with swooping shots from the ensuing action to the scenery without giving any meaning to either.
The most problematic sections are the beginning and the end, where the action deviates greatly from the book, mostly to the detriment of logic and continuity. They are particularly glaring and frustrating in the climax, where the important theme of love is hammered home to the audience by having Harry declare it in a ridiculous speech expressing his internal struggle against Voldemort's possession, which broke the dramatic tension! Overall, I didn’t like the final battle at all; in the book, these scenes demonstrate one of the best written fight/climaxes of the whole series, with the utter chaos and power on show from both the adults and the children, but the movie chooses to focus solely on Harry's struggle and it lessened the traumatic impact, the pain and darkness, of the ending.
In contrast, the DA scenes during the movie were wonderful, as they show how Harry had grown as a person at this point – both in magical skill and also in his understanding of the seriousness of the situation - and visually it managed to be both informative about the other students and their skills in fighting, which is important considering what parts they play in later books, as well as being playful. The same comfortable chemistry was encouragingly present in the scenes between the core trio of Harry, Hermione and Ron. However, the children's acting seemed to be improving imperceptibly - Rupert Grint continues to mug/mope for the camera giving Ron a perpetual infantile two-dimensional feel; Dan Radcliffe, well, yikes, learn a new expression!; and in stark contrast, Emma Watson tries so hard to emote with her face that her eyebrows are now almost a separate character.
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