Harry Potter and the Five Hours of Your Life You Will Never Get Back

You know a movie sucks when half way through it you are reviewing your grocery list and thinking about chores at home. By the end of the movie I was just mad that they took so long to tell their story and then didn't even finish the damn story. There should have been a warning with the opening credits that said: This movie is twice the length of a normal movie and will then will fail to complete a plot. Do not watch it unless you have religiously read the books and love teenage relationship drama.

Spoiler alert. I was told before I went that the film ended with the shocking murder of Dumbledore. By the time we were into the THIRD HOUR I was thinking "Come on, people. You gotta get on with the business of killing this guy if we are ever going to get out of here."

Also, It drives me nuts that they market this movie to children despite the fact that it is so clearly inappropriate for kids. I'm not one of those people who has anything against the witchcraft and wizardry theme but I do have a problem with the all out focus on "snogging" and characters hooking up and all of the boyfriend/ girlfriend angst. In addition, the scene where the skeleton creatures come out of the water and attack Harry was way too visually horrible for a child to see. I may be retentive about kids and movies but I was shocked.

I have an issue with the fantasy genre in general. If you don't have to adhere to the rules of reality then your character can get out of anything. It seems like kind of a cop-out for the writer of fantasy. So lets say that our hero has a big problem. How will he ever work it out? Oh... he is going to use the good luck serum or maybe use a spell that reverses time or fight the bad guy with his magic wand. At first glance this stuff seems all very creative but then when you think about it you realize that if you are rewriting the laws of physics, then anything goes.

I know a lot of people who worship these books and movies and will disagree with me on this negative review (you know who you are, Lisa). I am interested to hear what everyone else thinks. Were the characters and their love interests as totally under-developed as I thought they were? (Why was Harry into Weasley's sister?) Did they not start a million random tangent storylines and then leave them all unaddressed? Was the climax as anti-climactic to everyone else? By the way, why are we supposed to care that Snape is the Half-Blood Prince? Because he made some helpful notes in a textbook?

Couldn't they have told this complicated rambling story in an hour and a half? I could go on forever. We never go to the movies anymore so I was really disappointed when this one turned out so lame. Luckily we had free babysitting and gift certificates for tickets so all we were out was the five hours of our life. At least I got to be on a hot date with my hubby and snuggle with him in a dark theater with buttery popcorn and caffeinated beverages.