Metacritic: 43 out of 100 | User Rating: 5.8 out of 10
Rotten Tomatoes: 38% out of 100 | 42% out of 100
Box Office | Domestic: $13 Million | Global: $25 Million | Totaling: $39 Million | Budget: $40 Million
This movie takes from multiple concepts and throws it all into the same blender, hitting puree and pouring an awful cup of confused genre soup without straining the awful sour mash. It’s as if a five year old put this one together or likely that it was intended for five year olds., which very well may be the case for both. If you think back to when you were a child mixing paints to come up with a new color and just globbed everything together to get this awful gray, peppered with the dead carcasses of colors fading away until unrecognizable into the evil soup, then you will understand this awful mish mash of sight and sound. While the title of this article is specific about Harry Potter, I have to be honest and say I can’t truly define this film as stealing solely from Harry Potter. It is stealing from every monster, vampire, magical, coming of age, betrayal troupe I can conceive of.
It was also poorly cast, the actors, many of them usually excellent at their craft, were blinding to watch in this film. This film didn’t create any new markets for any of them with any breakthrough performances, it made them look stupid and likely caused them to reflect at the merit of a paycheck over choosing wisely a film project for which to be attached. This isn’t even worth watching on cable, for free. I’d rather spend the time picking my nose and attempting the wingardium leviosa spell on said bogies than watch this film ever again.
It is a damn shame because of the amazing actors cast in this film. A movie that should have been simple fun was just awkward and boring to watch and removed a large amount of personal and social responsibility and tried to call it fantasy for young adults.
Personal Ranking: 1/2 ★ (God Awful)
Originally published October 28, 2014. Updated April 15, 2018.
