[rating: 3.5]

Harry Potter is back for the fifth installment of the seven part epic by JK Rowling. This time the movie was aimed differently than the Goblet of Fire and it worked… worked very well indeed :)

The movie is as good as probably a 150min adaptation of a 700 odd page book can get. The writers have concentrated on achieving closure to stories and that has boded well. Before I go into the specifics… “DONT MISS THIS MOVIE” esp if you hated part 4!

(By spoilers I mean how different parts of the book were interpreted and scenes I loved)

Lets go from the Casting
* Apart from the usual top 3 I always loved the casting of Serevus Snape’s character but this movie gave me a couple more! Ralph Fiennes is awe inspiring… There cant be a better Tom Riddle/Lord Voldemort… Helena Bonham Carter is as perfect as Bellatrix Lestrange can get… She is just too awesome!!!

* Bonnie Wright looked gorgeous as Ginny Weasley and Evanna Lynch looked a little too sweet to be Luna Lovegood but the character portrayal was so strong that you cant but love her performance… Dudley Dursley unfortunately looked a little under weight :P

* Natalia Tena looked great as Nymphadora Tonks unfortunately her role was more biased as an ensemble and that was a bit disappointing. Hopefully more of her and Lupin will follow in the next parts!

* Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge was very convincing… It didnt take long to hate her totally :) And finally Michael Gambon was looking great as Albus Dumbledore… Its hard to believe its the same man whome I hated in part 4!

The Story:

* They cut into the parts of the book and made it a point to get the story across… That seems like a right move but it meant that the amazing scenes we imagined were ignored.

* Closure was in top of the agenda and that meant that many characters never got their due :( In the end the story made sense and thats what matters.

* For someone watching the movie without reading the books or watching the first four movies, this movie would not be boring nor misdirected and thats a good thing.

The Effects:

* All the sets looked great! they fit well in and some even took me by surprise

* The ministry of magic looked brilliant… The room of requirement was great… Umbridge’s room looked great.

* The finale was awesome at the least! Voldemort v/s Dumbeldore was brilliant beyond words… You dont need to know that these two were the greatest wizards of their time, its very evident

* Sirius’ death was very well shown… Felt the reaction from Harry was a bit too much but what the heck it was an emotional scene.

* Ginny was shown as a very powerful witch and I think it might just sit well with book 7 ;)

The Disappointing bits:

* OWLs were bad :( but dont think they are very important wrt the main story line so this was excusable
* Wanted to watch Umbridge covered in sludge but that was skipped :(
* The modified the story quiet a bit to get closure but that was probably required
* Ending was a bit too abrupt

All in all its definitely the better one of the sequels this year(after ofcourse Ocean’s 13) :)