Okay, well it wasn't nearly as bad as my boss had reported. It helps that I'm a fan of the universe, but not to the point where I've reread the book since it came out. I think I remembered just enough of the plot to follow the movie - if I hadn't read the book at all I would have been totally lost - but not in so much detail that I cared what had been changed.

(And from what I remember of the book, I would have changed much much more. Like enough to condense this into one movie. If you need a pee break at any point, just go whenever the three kids are sitting around a room looking forlorn and not talking. And don't worry if you don't have to go the first time this happens, you'll have another chance in about 5 minutes. Rinse, repeat.)

I think that people who have not read the books will not enjoy this one unless they've rewatched all the previous films VERY recently. This is a movie in desperate need of a "previously on" or Star-Wars style crawl to let the audience know what's going on and who the hell everyone is. There's also a ton of new mythology to be introduced, and if they couldn't get through it in 2+ hours here, I'm not confident it's going to make any sense in part 2.

Overall, the problems with the film are the same as the problems with the book - narratively, it's just kind of a mess. But it's an enjoyable mess, and it's always nice to spend time in this universe however clunky the storytelling.

Tep, I think you're right, but I would have never thought that myself.

Tep, I think you're right, but I would have never thought that myself.

He just *looks* like how I envision Bruce Wayne. I know he's a little too old for the "Begins" timeline (Batman Begins; The Dark Knight), and I have no problem with Christian Bale as Batman, but I still think Julian McMahon looks more Bruce-like.

He does. Really. Who could play "millionaire playboy" better than that?Oh, besides RDJ who is, already.

Jessica,

did you really think the book was a narrative mess? I haven't read the book since it came out, but except for the slow part, I thought I liked it a lot.

did you really think the book was a narrative mess?

Having listened to the audiobook multiple times I'll just note that Rowling tries to shoehorn in all this wand lore which is both complex and integral to the plot.

Which is on top of the complicated lore of the horcruxes and the Hallows themselves, all of which have tricky little rules that she levers for narrative effect.

I do think she manages to hit the right emotional beats and it's still very engaging. But stopping at the climactic battle to have a bigass exposition about whose wand is The Boss of Them All is less than ideal.

Which is already after the entire chapter where Harry gets killed and Dumbledore explains why he's only Mostly Dead.

But stopping at the climactic battle to have a bigass exposition about whose wand is The Boss of Them All is less than ideal.

oh goodness. you are totally right. I put that all out of my head. the wand stuff was really really crazy.

It actually reminded me of the climactic scene in Tootsie where they're on live TV and Dustin Hoffman starts making up shit to explain why he's really a man.

Yes, for all the reasons Hec points out. Also the 100+ pages of Tent Bickering complete with pop-ins from other characters saying "ZOMG YOU GUYS THERE'S SO MUCH EXCITING STUFF GOING ON OUTSIDE THIS TENT TOO BAD JKR IS GOING TO KEEP YOU HERE ANOTHER 100 PAGES KTHXBYE."

Yeah, once they stopped having the time to properly edit and translate them (with #5 I think), the overall quality really suffered. I still love the series, but the latter books could have been so much better.