What has been done that makes it work, is that each moment in the film, every scene has a plot point that is essential to the movie. The shine has definitely gone off the first film for me, although much of that has to do with my own mania for the franchise waning.

What really sells the feel of the collection are the leather-bound book cases for each film, which all rest on a custom wood shelf. The Philosopher's Stone' (2001) sees Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) newly enrolled at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where he makes friends with Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson). Even if the nightmare was of the ominous figure of He Who Must Not Be Named committing murder, that’s no reason not to enjoy the Quidditch World Cup. The image is clear throughout, with impressive, vibrant, and detailed HD presentation for the most part, although like the previous films, depth and clarity do begin to suffer when dark and misty scenes prevail. But Slughorn has a habit of ‘collecting’ the scions of the powerful and famous, as well as promising students of the future, he’s a career networker, and he’d like to add Harry Potter to his shelf.The Ministry of Magic certainly wows as a visual edifice, and it’s noticeable that they use a different, simpler effect for Sirius in the fireplace. This is the case of The James Bond Collection from 2020, which was originally meant to coincide with No Time To Die, before its many delays.

This nine-disc collection serves up no less than twenty-five Zatoichi films from 1962 to 1973, brought up to HD quality, thanks to Criterion's rigorous restoration process. Will Harry be able to keep up with his studies, lead his team to victory in the school sport Quidditch, and still triumph over the dreaded Voldemort?The surround is nice, resonant, and very effective during the action sequences, and in terms of establishing ambience, giving the film’s music space, but at this point the Harry Potter films start to ape the rest of their cinema peers, and start burying the dialogue beneath the action during the more strident moments, making the presence of subtitles more a necessity than a useful option. The Coffin Box collection narrows down the roundup to eight essential films, with excellent picture and audio clarity, packed into a case that any fan of classic monsters will love. The flow of the story is natural, well paced, and feels concise, not at all piecemeal or bitty as in the first two films. widescreen 1080p image still uses the VC-1 codec, but I certainly didn’t feel that the contrast was overly tweaked this time.

It’s a story that lends itself to a simple narrative, and functionally, it doesn’t really matter that the film takes place over a whole school year, or in the space of days. They’re no longer child actors, but actors full stop, and deliver consistent, strong, and effective performances, really conveying the emotional content of a scene. It allows for one final burst of energy, a bit of action and comedy as the trio raid Gringotts, before things get really dark and dramatic for the final battle, and leavening the action with a bit of levity, or some other character arc is no longer an option.The rest of the films are just workmanlike affairs, entertaining, and fulfilling, always getting the story across but lacking cinematic flair.

It’s not just the cool bits that fans would complain about, wondering why there wasn’t more Firenze, or where all the Quidditch was, it was interesting background details of the characters, particularly Dumbledore’s past in the final film, that couldn’t make it on screen, for lack of time or pacing issues.By this point, they’ve taken to desaturating the image of colour to add to the gloominess, and quite often a scene will fade to black in the background, really only highlighting the foreground elements. Meeting secretly with a small group of students who name themselves 'Dumbledore's Army,' Harry teaches them how to defend themselves against the Dark Arts, preparing the courageous young wizards for the extraordinary battle that lies ahead. Indeed it looks as if they are hell-bent on persecuting him to the full extent of whatever law minister Cornelius Fudge can devise. So we get the cinema shortcut of newspaper headlines spelling out significant plot developments and as a shorthand for the clock turning.