I saw the movie last night at midnight, and I hated the fifth book. So going into the movie, I honestly expected to be bored to tears until the Ministry battle. Instead I absolutely enjoyed it, I loved it more than the book! The only thing is that the Ministry battle could have been better. I personally wanted to see more in the Department of Mysteries.

I went again tonight with my sister, who doesn't read the books, and she had know idea what was going on. I get that. I feel like this movie was most rewarding to those who read the books. They could have focused more on the prophecy, which received little explanation and fanfare.

Other than that, I thought the directing was exquisite and script adaption to be divine. I felt the movie flowed much better than others and it managed to crop out all excessive "Harry angst", which for me ruined the book. In my mind, this was how the fifth book should have been. I honestly feel like the script writer cropped out all the nonsense and left the essence of the book. Yates was able to capture the real relationship between Harry and Sirius. I always got that Sirius was Harry's godfather and therefore a close connection, but I never really felt it until I saw it on screen. I'm now quite sad Sirius is dead, I rather liked him in this movie. He came off less angry and less bitter in this, which I think took his character in a different, but very interesting, direction.

Casting wise, this was brilliant. Evanna Lynch was the greatest catch. I couldn't imagine Luna being anybody else! Tonks was awesome, of course, even though we only saw a little bit of her. Dan-wise, I always thought he was very good, but during scenes with intense emotion, he never was able to really perform. That was, until this film. He has grown so much as an actor, that his performance completely stood on its own accord, and he showed why he is Harry Potter.