Some weeks ago, a friend and I went to see the newest Harry Potter in theaters and I neglected to write up anything about it until now. First of all, we were easily the oldest people without children in the theater and it was great to watch when the kids laughed as opposed to when we shared a muffled laugh at the limited sexual innuendo in the movie. Personally, I enjoyed the movie for what it was and I thought it was the best one yet. The new director was able to give us a more cinematically complex movie while maintaining the kiddie appeal. The fact that it interested me enough to pick up the book and yet still entertained even the youngest of children is saying something.
It was the storyline, although predictable, that really made me want to compare book-to-movie. I don't want to spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen the movie or read the book but the way certain events near the end of the book were handled really impressed me and, of course, made me want to find out if the brains behind it were J.K.'s own or fell more on the production side of things. Some things, however, bothered me about the movie. Emphasis was placed on the time metaphor in nothing short of tons later in the movie while the begining had few metaphors dealing with the same concept. Normally, a metaphor exists throughout an entire film but I have yet to see much dealings (directly, at least) with time in the first half of the book and so perhaps the issue lies with trying to keep the little suprises near the end secret... A few resolutions were really obviously spelled out after the fact which is necessary when dealing with movie primarily for children, I suppose. Perhaps the adult version of The Prisoner of Azkaban (not that adult version although I wouldn't mind seeing Hermione "Jailbait" Granger in... erm, nevermind) would have been handled differently.