Harry Potter is a Really long movie.

In something of a coup, I managed to view the new Harry Potter film without much of a hassle, or having to wait in line for a ticket a horrid time like last time. One of the parents of my students booked an early ticket for me online. Websites for the theaters have been booking tickets for the past 2 weeks in anticipation of this release, and without a ticket you are assured a long line as your scramble to find seats for what hasn't sold out yet.

While a pre-booking assures less waiting in line for those willing (or able) to book online, the system assures that scarce tickets are nearly impossible to get, discouraging people that would normally go out on an opening weekend to stay home. The system isn't perfect either. The tickets I was issued were double sold. We sat down where we were directed to, then got a rather rude shock when someone brought an usher to tell us to get out of the seats we had tickets for. Someone had made an error, so we had to get up and miss 5 minutes of the movie.

The most moronic part of it? Directly behind our seats were three unoccupied seats. What kind of an person gets an usher to make us move when the seat directly behind us had no one in it!? The usher told us we had sat in theater "1", not "2". We had to get up, move to another theater completely, and sit in our assigned seats...not the empty ones behind our original seats. (Shakes head. So very stupid.)

I didn't like the second Harry Potter book's ending very much, so watching in unfold on film wasn't pleasant. I walked out of the theater with a headache, and I felt like I had been hit by a brick with all the bright lights. I was surprised I didn't see newly formed glaciers clogging the streets, as the impending ice age was likely to have come and passed...this movie is LONG....really long.

It was much better paced than the first film, but still seemed to drag at times. It was everything the first one was, with less exposition and more incredible special effects work. I wouldn't recommend it for someone that disliked the first movie, or the books, as it's basically the same thing.Still, since I will be hearing about this movie for the next year with my student's I'm glad I watched it now, rather than later.

While waiting for the movie I won one free ticket to any movie I wanted to see this December. The movie I most want to see is Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, so I will try to use it for that. The difficult part will be getting the tickets for everyone else that wants to see it together...