The New Harry Potter Movie:The 8 Millionth Quick Review

Well, not quite a review actually. But I feel compelled to say how good the movie was.

I've often said something I think we all, as readers and audiences, know. It's not enough to have a fantastic background to tell as story, especially one that develops such legs. You can have the most fantastic and seductive setting that you can name, the most inventive and artistic surrounding, and it will still be absolutely sterile and empty unless you have interesting characters.

The characters of the Harry Potter saga are not only interesting, they're likeable. They each have traits that are appealing and personalities that are human - good and bad impulses and flaws. They speak to us in thier own way. Some of us identify with Harry, for quite a few have been the fish out of water who thinks maybe they are actually part of some other world but put down in the wrong one by mistake or tragedy.

The movie characters carry off very well from the literary versions, and the casting couldn't have been more perfect. I love the earnestness of Daniel Radcliffe's portrayal, the expressiveness and honesty of Rupert Grint's performance, and the chattery freneticism of Emma Watson's Hermione. They are also good looking actors, in particular, in about ten years Emma Watson's going to make we wish I were thirty years younger.

Michael Gambon follows Richard Burton's Dumbledore admirably, echoing Burton but not impersonating him. Well done there, though it will take at least the next movie before he makes the character his own

Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman positively own McGonagle and Snape, though sadly there was much less for either to do in this one than the last, though Rickman did work well as a comic foil in the boggart lesson scene.

David Thewlis as this turn's Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts...I confiess this is the first time I've been able to enjoy a performance of his, having not really followed his career. Good turn as Lupin, earnest and sympathetic. In a way, his performance as someone cursed with lycanthropy made me think of people who have chronic occasionally debilitaing mundane afflictions and the sacrifices they sometimes have to make to get by.

Gary Oldman...dead on as Sirius Black. The performance just has to be seen; by now I think there's nothing that he can't pull off with flair.

There are some things left off; there is so much in the story that to make it 100% faithfully as a movie would require three or four hours. Get ready for more of this; as anyone who's followed the books knows, they're just getting loooooonger. But largely the omissions that were made were the right thing. I do, however, regret that the movie completely omitted exactly who was behind the pseudonyms on the cover of the Marauder's Map; it's an important thread that gives the story depth and real history, and really depicts the secret nature of the world of these wizards.

In all, it's worth seeing because it's giddy fun, not just for kids but for adults who still cherish thier inner kid, it maintains the standard of gorgeous design and photography that the first two movies made, and in all, it's well done storytelling.