loved the baby!

It was certainly my favourite movie of the series thus far. Probably because there weren't any huge gaps like there have been in the other movies; cutting stuff like the Dursleys or and entire Quidditch match was really annoying for me, and put me off. Especially when they use the space created to have events that weren't even in the book in the first place. But there wasn't any of that here, for which I was grateful.

They did cut some stuff, obviously, but, and as a book purist, I feel odd saying it, I actually liked how some bits were edited out. The number of Harry having "I YELL IN BLOCK CAPITALS!" episodes were greatly reduced; especially at then end where he just sits there looking sad rather than smashing Dumbledore's stuff and blaming him. They took out the part where Harry and Cho go on a date, which was good for me, because I cannot stand Cho. Once again, the Creevy brothers are nowhere to be seen, but nobody likes them anyway. The Quibbler thing and Rita were scrapped entirely... but again, I hate Rita and the movie seemed to be just fine without it.

I was a little irritated at the loss of the St Mungo's scenes, but it would've been too long with everything. They explain Neville's parental situation differently, guy-whose-name-escapes-me doesn't choke on his plant and we don't get to see Lockhart again, which is either a curse or blessing, depending who you are.

The only other bit I was disappointed not to see was during the astronomy exam, where Hagrid and McGonagall get attacked by the ministry. I don't know why; I just really liked that scene in the book, and the way Hagrid was treated like and animal and totally unnecessary force was used against McGonagall just made you hate Fudge and co. even more.

There isn’t actually any Quidditch played at all, but honestly didn’t realize it until the movie was over.

The new (and existing) actors were brilliant. Tonks was brilliant and looked a lot like I imagined her to, and while I've always imagined Luna to look like Osaka from Azumanga Daioh, she was played very well and not overdone, like I expected her to be. The two best new actors were definitely those who played Bellatrix (I take my hat off to Bonham-Carter; she was absolutely insane) and Umbridge. I spent a lot of the movie wanting to take my shoes off and throw them at the cinema screen in the hopes of just killing her because she was just that annoying and evil. Which is really good, since that's what I wanted to do in the book, too.
Figg was okay, but she didn't seem to care too much about the Dementor attack.
I couldn't take Kingsley Shacklebolt seriously, though... he looked way too much like my mental picture of the third king from the nativity scene. I kept imagining him bringing out frankincense or something. But I think that's me being weird rather than poor casting choices.

Filch was more of a comic relief character than being genuinely evil, which I thought was a little odd, given that he tries all sorts of things in the book - like whipping, for example, which I guess were a little dark for the movie.

The non-humans were all great; Grawp looked brilliant (though they cut out such wonderful likes as "HERMY!" and "Where Hagga?" which made me sad), the Centaurs were suitably wild and Kreacher appeared, but didn't do anything, which was a little odd, I thought, given that he was partly responsible for Sirius' death.

Speaking of which, his death was very well done. Bellatrix actually used the AK curse instead of just knocking him behind the veil, but he fell backwards into there anyway. The part after, though... all audio was cut and you see Harry silently screaming and Remus pulling him back... which was so incredibly similar to The Fellowship of the Ring that I honestly expected Harry to yell "Gandalf!". The leadup was great, however; Harry and Sirius had a great connection in the movies and hugged about four times, which made it actually painful to see Harry afterwards. Very well done.

My favourite three bits were the DA meetings, Fred and George's exit and the fight scenes in the DoM.

The DA meetings were exceptionally well done; I don't know if it was music, filters, acting or what, but al the DA meeting scenes had a wonderful feelgood quality about them that just made you smile. The way everyone progressed was done excellently and at our showing a few people actually cheered when Neville finally cast the expelliarmus spell. Even though not everyone's patronuses (?) were mentioned in the book, they were picked very well; Ginny's horse, Ron's dog and Luna's hare all seemed very suitable and it was clear that thought had gone into picking them.

The part where Fred and George leave was just brilliant; like the book, as the fly off after causing mass havoc, you just wanted to cheer. Their knocking down all the rules Filch had put up on the wall was wonderfully symbolic and I loved it. It wasn't entirely faithful to the book (the fireworks faded after one explosion, which was a shame), but it was done for a reason; soon afterwards Harry had another Voldy-flashback, and the mood wouldn't have been right with fireworks still going off.

I really loved the whole Department of Mysteries affair, though. The whole Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna and Ginny being in it together thing was as feelgood as the DA meetings and the scene with them flying to the DoM was well done (though the "OMG BRITIAN" thing with the Houses or Parliament, etc. was a little irritating to me), but the running away from the Death Eaters was pacy and panicked, giving the same sense of urgency as the book. It'd have been nice if they gave an explanation of what exactly a prophecy was, though; we went with my friend's mum and she hadn't read the books and was a little confused about what "all the shiny balls" were. Seeing the students put all the stuff they'd learned in the DA lessons into practice was awesome (though I swear levicorpus isn't introduced until HBP), and the arrival of Sirius, Moody and co. was cheerworthy.
Unlike the book, the giant fountain does nothing, which was a shame... though at least getting to see it was nice. The part where Harry gets possessed by Voldy was well done, especially how Harry acted snakelike through the whole thing; legs together, twisting his neck around... very good acting by Radcliff, I thought.

Overall... I really, really loved it, and my friend and I spent the next hour or so talking about nothing else (and we probably would've gone on for a lot longer if I hadn't needed to go home). We're really looking forward to going to see it again. If you're a HP fan and are thinking about waiting for the DVD release; don't. There are some movies that need to be seen on a big screen with surround sound, and this is one of them.

"A snake will come and BIKE YOUR NECK!" -thing, but all I could think was "OMGADAMSAPPLE!"

...I think the director liked Daniel's neck way too much. :3