We feel for him as we watch his disastrous (but hilarious) attempts to escape his uncle and aunt, and his humiliating reaction to the dementors. Harry's personal life is sharply intertwined with the plot. The story is gripping from start to finish, because the threat looming over the school is established early on. But part of what makes the movie work is the book itself. This is a children's movie, but it is also a fantasy-thriller that we can take seriously, because not everything is spelled out for us. The new director never condescends to the audience in that way. For instance, where the books only hint that Dumbledore can see through the invisibility cloak, the earlier movies make it unmistakable. Columbus's approach was to stick to the books as literally as possible, often draining them of their subtlety. Certainly this has something to do with the new director. The changes are clever and funny, and they help compensate for the movie's loss in other areas. This is evident in the way they show, for example, the Knight Bus Hermione's overstuffed schedule and the introduction of the Marauder's Map, a scene that captures the twins' mischievous personalities. When it deviates, it does so based on an understanding of the story and characters. Many of the scenes are exactly as I had imagined them. The movie is still faithful to the book, of course. The first two films fell short in this regard, because they lacked the guts to tinker with the details, even though that was the key to condensing the story while staying true to its spirit. But it captures much of the book's delight and humor. The screenplay is sparing, leaving out or simplifying loads of details not directly relevant to the plot.
The virtue of the latest film is that it makes a real attempt to adapt the story, not just marching in lockstep with the book's events. Had they continued with this strategy for this movie, based on a much longer book, it would surely have been over three hours long. The result was a set of films that felt cluttered yet incomplete. The first two films tried to fit everything they could within a reasonable slot of time. Since that isn't what these films are, the story has to be abridged. The only way to satisfy fans would be to include everything from the book, which would require a miniseries. I think this is by far the best Harry Potter movie yet. "Why didn't they identify the names on the Marauder's Map?" "Why wasn't the second Quidditch game shown?" "Why wasn't there more of Crookshanks the Cat?" By focusing on what the film didn't have, fans fail to look at the film on its own terms. This is clear just from hearing some of the comments. If there's anything this movie proves, it is the difficulty in separating the series from the demands of fans.
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