Since Mike Newell directed this film, perhaps a better title would be Harry Potter, a bathtub and a funeral.

There are only two things I can say about this film. 1) It's the most boring Harry Potter film since the first one and 2) Rupert Grint is hot.

Really. That's my whole review. I mean, this film is so drab that a teenage boy dies at the end and nobody cares. Nobody.

After the daring use of Alfonso Cuaron in the third film installment of the series, one had a right to expect great things from these film. But like Christopher Columbus, Newell is too slick and too much of a big budget filmmaker to really make an interesting and edgy film. This looks as slick and crappy as anything that has come out of Hollywood lately. (Did somebody say "Rent?") There's nothing cool or awesome to gives one a feeling of "Wow" during the film. Even the appearance of Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), Harry's big nemesis, at the end of the film is quite a let- down. And what's up with the homoerotic rubbing of their two wands together? This anticlimactic and utterly gay moment is augmented and made even more homosexual by the copious release of much white goo as the two stand toe to toe and point their wands at one and other. At least this is more titillating and politically correct than when Ron Weasley is chided for having a crush on a handsome, athletic male peer.

The Harry Potter series is truly based on some silly good vs. evil type writing from J.K. Rawlings, who won the mother of all lotteries (hehe pun not intended) when this contrived and silly series of books became popular. There is a reason this woman was living in a car at one point. When all is said and done, she is quite untalented. Only the charm of Grint, the cuteness of Daniel Radcliffe and the plethora of hottie teen boys here make this film at all tolerable. The third film, "The Prisoner of Azkaban" is still the best in the series in my book. And my book seems to beat out any one Rawlings ever wrote.

Note:

Also with Emma Watson, Timothy Spalls, Robbie Coltrane, Michael Gambon, Warwick Davis, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman (most of the series regulars are given little or nothing to do), David Tennant, Miranda Richardson, Gary Oldman (kinda), Shirley Henderson, Robert Pattison, and Stanislav Ianevski.

Newell, the first British director of the three who have helmed Potter films, purportedly took on this film after Cuaron declined to make it. He supposedly also convinced Newell that the 700+ page book could be made as one film, rather than the two the studio hoped to make, and many subplots were deleted from the script by Steven Kloves. Newell purportedly received only 1 million dollars to direct where Christopher Columbus received 10 million and bonuses based on grosses.

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the next feature film in the series, is expected in June, 2007. Already in production the film is being helmed by British TV director David Yates.

Viewed in Austin in November of 2005.

Report Card

Script: D-

Acting: B-

Cinematography\Lighting: C

Special Effects\Make Up: C+

Music: C-

Final Grade: D+