Long, spoilery post ahead, so I'll put it all in white.
The good
~ THE MEN! If there's one thing the HP series is good for, it's pretty boys, and this one was no different <3 I've always had a crush on the entire Weasley family, but Bill just took the cake and ran with it. OMNOMNOM. And do NOT get me started on Scabior!
~ They didn't cut as many important plot points as they usually do. YAY. In fact, one of the girls in my group had never read the books or see any of the movies, and she followed along just fine.
~ Bellatrix is awesome-- was the "Mudblood" thing sick? Yes. Was it perfectly in character? That too! She's my favorite character anyway because she's just so messed up (have you guys noticed I like evil people?), but WOW.
~ Xenophilius in general. That's exactly how I pictured him-- well, maybe my version was a little older, a little further from being attractive (what?), and reminded me slightly less of AVPS's Firenze, but still! I love the way they made him a crazy old hippie ^_^
~ The animation on the Three Brothers sequence. I was so afraid they were just going to have Hermione talk through the whole thing and fix the camera on her for ungodly amounts of time, but the way they did it was cool
~ Dobby's Crowning Moment of Awesome when he tells Bella and the Malfoys where to shove it before Apparating away. Never liked him much before, but oh my ROWLING, that was great! Which brings us to...
~ Dobby's death. Still didn't cry because I don't have a soul, but it was so much sadder than it was in the book, I thought. "Such a beautiful place... to be with friends." D'AAAAW.
~ NEVILLE ON THE TRAIN. "Hey, losers, he's not here!" Such beautiful foreshadowing for the next movie where he becomes the Wizarding Chuck Norris <333 You go, Neville!
The bad
~ Did anybody else's brain just burst into "I am in the dark beside you, even now I'm at your window" every time Grindelwald showed up?
~ Dan and Emma STILL. CANNOT. ACT. Emma's improved a little bit, but Dan's horrific crying was the reason I didn't cry like I probably should have at Dobby's death. At least it wasn't as pitifully overdone as his crying over Cedric.
~ The Bathilda Bagshot stuff was slightly underwhelming, I thought. Then again, the way I imagined it was a little too gory for a PG-13 movie.
~ The Burrow just regenerated like nothing ever happened. Granted, they're wizards and the part in HBP where it burned down was completely pointless, but still.
~ Will Ginny and Tonks ever get more than one scene per movie?
~ Remus got into Dumbledore's crazy pills from the fourth movie. I know his character gets horrifically derailed in book 7, but still, what was that?
~ Lucius! LUCIUS! LUSCIOUS LUCIUS!!! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?! You've been home from Azkaban for months! Shave! Comb and wash your hair! BE THE SEXY, SEXY MAN YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN! I ALMOST CRIED WHEN I SAW YOU-- WHAT HAPPENED, BABY?! WHY ARE YOU NOT GORGEOUS ANYMORE?!
And while we're on the subject of Lucius, I would like to make a speech.
We all have that one belonging that is so much more special than anything in the world. Picture that belonging. Now imagine what you would feel if a creepy pale man with no nose and horrid fingernails snapped that posession into pieces because he wanted a small part of it. I'm speaking, of course, of Lucius's pimp cane. For four movies, it was there for us, shining, being intimidating, and making Lucius look generally fabulous. It was stylish. It was badass. It was pimptastic. Without it, Lucius just isn't quite the same, and a little bit of light has gone from the series. So let us honor this fallen hero of the Dark Side. RIP, Lucius's pimp cane. You will be sorely missed.
