first, the thread is called RATE THE MOVIE. which to me, means "see the movie, then come comment" i depise the annoying spoiler tags that make threads impossible to read, so proceed at your own risk
i dunno.having read the books, i can only make my judgments on them as adaptions and not stand-alone movies.
i liked the first one, cuz it did a good job of staying faitfhul to the book (some say too much so). it LOOKED like i expected it too. i also liked the added comedy bits to make the move a bit more light-hearted and cut out some of the redundant exposition in the books
i liked the second one cuz it played up the silliness and worked well as a companion-piece to the book. yes, the ending was pretty brutal but i never liked the ending of the book either, and was already sufficiently pleased with the rest of the movie.
this one? it didnt LOOK right. i know everyone is raving about cauron, but i didnt like the constant long views, i didnt like the fact that most of the movie took place outside, and was brightly lit. to me, it was counter-productive to the scary mood the movie should have been setting with the dementors. I thought the over-use of the "real" clothes would bother me, but it didn't. But the constant daylight annoyed me to no end. And the werewolf looked almost as bad as the centaur in the first movie. Yikes. Also, the dementors looked great, but the using of their powers was ridiculous.
The first time through the books, this was my favorite, but a recent re-read had me deciding that this book was 75% exposition with harry having no clue what was going on. I must have really just been into the mystery. I think that story-wise they did an ok job with what they saved and what they cut, and dan's acting has improved some. (at least he pulled off angry ok, which will be important later) So I'm just as happy with the content of this movie as I am with the other ones, just the look bothers me. And the music. The music was bothering me to no end. UGH. Can I have the harry potter theme back and not this something wicked this way comes nonsense?
I'm gonna give it a 7 for now. but will probably have to watch it again to really decide.