Lottery Post Journal

GOF = Goblet of Fire

I went to see the new Harry Potter movie yesterday (opening day), and I'm here to report it was very good.

Book 4 of the series, on which the movie was based, was and is still my favorite in the whole series of books.  It is a masterpiece.

Thus, with such high expectation for the movie, I don't think there was any way for the movie to live up to those standards, but it did come close.

The main problem, especially if the movie-goer had not read the book, is that in order to fit such a long book into 2-1/2 hours, they had to condense a lot of material.  Hence, there are entire sections of the book absent from the movie, and other concepts, like certain explanations of the Harry/Voldemort duel at the end, are not fully explained.

One of the nicest things about the movie franchise is that each movie is so uniquely different from the other.  You don't feel like it is another James Bond movie, where they have "insert criminal here" or "insert dangerous situation here".  Each movie is completely different, both in content and tone.

To the producer's credit, they did not shy from the fact that one of the characters dies in the book, and did in fact show that event just like it happens in the book.  However, the PG-13 rating is a bit of a mystery to me.  I don't know of any 8- or 9-year-old who can not easily handle the material in the movie.  The PG-13 rating of a movie like Revenge of the Sith is much more fitting that the one given to GOF.

The special effects continue to get better and better with each movie.  The dragon is entirely convincing, and very threatening.

Overall, a very fun movie, recommended for any Potter fan, or any fan of fantasy films for that matter.