I'm pretty much just going to see these just to finish out the set. With low expectations, I was mildly surprised rather than disappointed that the filmmakers seem to have given up on any attempt to make the films comprehensible to anyone who isn't already familiar with the story.
I don't just mean the general outlines or the main characters. Lesser characters from the book appear with no explanation. If you didn't already know who and what Tonks and Remus were, don't look to the film to explain their identities or brief appearance. If you don't recall who Sirius Black was, then Bellatrix LeStrange running through a marsh screaming about killing him won't mean much, though Helena Bonham Carter's pouting malice as she chews the scenery is still entertaining overall. The Weasley home is burned to the ground for no apparent reason except to remind people how evil the evil people are (it doesn't happen in the book), but the major characters, including two Weasley children, go on with no apparent reaction to being homeless. No one explains who Katie Bell is or why anyone should care that she in particular is cursed. Hagrid is obviously upset that Aragog is dead, but there's no explanation of what Aragog is or why his death is so upsetting. I realize that this is the sixth film in a very popular franchise and that some amount of audience knowledge is safe to assume. And I've read the books myself, so I wasn't personally lost. But it was hard not to notice the way characters popped up at random and scenes occurred with no real connection to the rest of the film. It worked adequately for me since I could fill in the in-between stuff from memory, but it strikes me as lazy filmmaking. And two and a half hours is way too long; the leisurely pace gave me plenty of time to notice these problems.
There is something of an actual plot -- two intertwined plots -- involving Draco Malfoy being used to infiltrate Hogwarts for Voldemort while Harry and Dumbledore try to find out a dark secret from new (well, returned former) Professor Horace Slughorn, but the film meanders around so much that they almost get lost in the clutter. I'm all in favor of faithful adaptations, but in this case some streamlining of the very lengthy story would have made it a much better movie.
I did like the requisite Quidditch game, this time played in a snowstorm. I was amused by the adolescent angst of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, with their assorted romantic entanglements. Lavender was appropriately irritating and Luna properly spacey, though they used her so sporadically she didn't really fit into the film well. The final confrontation between Dumbledore, Draco, and Snape was very well done, with the interaction between the three of them convincing both within this film and the context of what Harry knows and (given that I know what happens in the next one) within the overall story.
I can't say I had a bad time, but I was getting pretty restless by the end. I'll keep seeing the films to finish out the series, but I could wish they'd try a little harder to make good movies instead of just throwing scenes together and tossing out disconnected tidbits for the fans.
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