Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a solid entry into the franchise, the first of the five from Mike Newell, and does a decent job balancing the dark elements with some brighter scenery, a departure from Alfonso Cuarón’s Prisoner of Azakban.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is my least favorite of the series yet it’s still entertaining with a compelling enough mystery surrounding the plot and it was nice seeing the young cast becoming comfortable in their respective roles while the addition of Kenneth Branagh gives the darker tone, compared to Sorcerer’s Stone, some levity.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone might not be perfect, it was however the perfect way to introduce audiences to this world and characters we would follow for the next several years. Even so, I was thoroughly entertained and they really did a great job casting the three unknowns and surrounding them with some excellent talent.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 is a good start to the final film in the series that started a decade ago and I can only hope it ends in the bang most have promised it would. It’s certainly the darkest of the franchise but also one of the best especially with the performances of the three leads.
Noah might’ve received high praise from some critics but for myself, I didn’t find much of this all that entertaining from the asinine storyline, the bizarre rock creatures who seemed to belong in a Peter Jackson movie and most of all a lead character who by movie’s end was rooting against. The film is also terribly bloated and a lot of material could’ve been trimmed or removed.
Although the Harry Potter Wizard’s Collection is quite expensive ($345 on Amazon as of this writing), for fans of the series, it might be worth it. I know fans will have already owned it but there might be enough here to make it worth your while. As for the set itself, there’s an enormous amount of features including some new featurettes which expands on the behind-the-scenes world and how the franchise was made.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix isn’t great but still quite good and highly entertaining. As to whether or not this Ultimate Edition is worth the money to upgrade is, at best, questionable. The only addition to the set, in terms of actual features, is the hour-long documentary which is well done no doubt but I highly suspect that once Deathly Hallows Part 2 is released, Warner will release a separate documentary with all 8-parts on one disc with some new extra thrown in.