It must be so hard to condense these books into just one 2 1/2 hour movie! This was a great job though, exciting, the characters are finally real 'characters', good balance between action, romance and humour. The liberty that the producers took with several aspects (e.g. Harry and Ginny) was right on and made for very convincing story lines. What makes me give it four stars is that the movie builds up, and up, and up to a plateau and then... No real climax. This same feeling was expressed by both my sons (13 and 15). The end is good though and really makes one hunger for the next one... Overall judgement: great movie!