I'm a huge fan of the HP books and movies and I was expecting more from this one. They couldn't put the entire book on the big screen, but they made the wrong choices in some cases. Example: scene at Hagrid's was much too long and not that important; final fight scene was completely eliminated. The movie did show a lot of character dev of Ron and Hermione, which was great - but that could have been distilled in favor of some of the more crucial plot elements that were eliminated. All in all, it's a fine companion piece to the book but doesn't stand on its own.