“Hubby and I thought the movie was excellent: the most powerful HP movie so far. There were some shortcuts taken, but they weren’t offensive to me in view of turning these massive books into a standard movie length.
And I agree that Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore finally became a real Dumbledore before the end...”
I also thought it was the best Harry Potter movie so far. It seemed to me that it took more liberties at deviating from the book than the other movies, but not in a bad way; in fact I liked it better than the book.
Regarding Dumbledore, Michael Gambon has not been nearly as good of a Dumbledore as Richard Harris...until this movie. I had always felt a little sorry for Michael Gambon having to follow up on the excellent Richard Harris, it wasn’t Gambon’s fault that Harris was so much better. In this movie, for the first time, I thought, wow, I really like this Dumbledore as much as the first one.
We really liked it too! There were some changes, and some things left out that I could nit-pick to death, but it's still an excellent movie. Ron was great and it was much funnier than I had thought it would be.
“Regarding Dumbledore, Michael Gambon has not been nearly as good of a Dumbledore as Richard Harris...until this movie. I had always felt a little sorry for Michael Gambon having to follow up on the excellent Richard Harris, it wasn’t Gambon’s fault that Harris was so much better. In this movie, for the first time, I thought, wow, I really like this Dumbledore as much as the first one.”
I respect Gambon, he is a good actor.
However, if he had been stuck playing the same “lame” Dumbledore as he did in #3, there might very well have been cheering at the climax of this movie instead of grief.
Hats off to Gambon and the director.
I am grateful I did not have to cheer at Astronomy Tower Scene.