The new installment to the Harry Potter series has just been released.  I must say that if you're a Potter fanatic, you won't be disappointed.  If you like fantasy movies, you'll enjoy it too.  If you don't like fantasy movies, then why are you reading this?

As many have already stated, the movie is much much darker.  There are some scene that may not be suitable for the youngins.  The movie is long, I believe it over 2+ hours long.  You don't really notice it because the pacing is done very well.  The soundtrack is subtle, but impactful.  Giving the right mood at the right time.  I didn't know this, but John Williams did not score this film.  He scored the first three installment of the film which is kind of wierd.  Maybe there were too many Harry Potter movies.

The actors, especially the three main characters are good.  You can tell with each movie their acting is improving.  Some of the supporting cast get more dialog in this film as well.  Draco has a use in this film where before, he was just there to irritate Harry.  As always Dumbledore always asks too much of Harry Potter.  Now lets talk about the CG.

The movie looks absolutely stunning.  Eventhough alot of the scenes are matte painted, they have done an excellent job to make sure it flows well.  The smoke effect when they were looking at the memories was awesome.  Transistion from water to ink/smoke to actual footage is so fluid.  It's reminiscent of the ink use in the Stree Fighter 4 intro.  The fire scene is absolutely stunning.  I think this is the first use of fire where you didn't notice the greenscreening at all.  Usually when a scene uses alot of fire (ie Spawn during hell or Constantine) it looks really fake.  Here it doesn't.  It really looks like the environment and the characters fit very well.  One thing, I don't know if it's just me, but the monsters in that cave looks like modified versions of Golum.  Even the way they moved looked similar as well.

The next two film are being filmed right now and will be split into two ala LOTR.  With releases in 2010 and the finale in 2011.  I wonder what the ratings for the films will be as alot of people are going to die in the next films.  Well if you can't wait then, I'm sure there will be other fantasy movies to arrive before then.

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