I had mentioned the "I love magic" thing in the discussion way back when. For me it isn't so much that he is still awed by what magic can do but that after several years of magical schooling he still seems to have no conception of it. He approaches a tent into which a half-dozen people have just entered and rather than thinking "magic sure is neat" seems instead to think "what I'm seeing isn't possible!"

I just don't like the character of Harry Potter. I like most of the other characters but Potter himself sucks quite a bit.

It was funny to see this thread. On the flight back from Japan last night, this was the last movie in English that I hadn't yet watched on the airplane and ended up sitting through it again. I still think it is the worst of the four (with the third one being best artistically, the first best storially, and I can't remember what happened in the second).

I think my problem with the first two films is that they are the straighest of adaptations, and are addressed in tone squarely to the kiddies.

The recent film, while also filmed quite "straight" could not manage to be a straight adaptation simply because so much of the book had to be left out due to time constraints. The tone seems to me to be very adolescent, which I suppose is appropriate to the age of the characters.

I love the third film so much because it was a very stylistic adaptation, and had a tone suitable, imo, to both young adults and adults.

Although Goblet of Fire is the only one of the film series to date to feature scenes that aren't even in the lliterary source material, it's Prisoner of Azkaban that seems like a looser adaptation ... more suited, imo, to a movie experience than the page-filming style of the other three films.

I think Goblet is a mess, storywise. But it suceeds mightily on the strength of its character-based comedy ... something you pretty much have to get around to once you're on the fourth film with these characters.