While it was, like any other movie, not without it's flaws; I actually loved it.
Obvious spoilers ahead:
One of the biggest complaints I've heard around the internet is a lack of proper transition from scene to scene and I didn't see that at all. Most scenes tended to flow naturally to the next and it doesn't exactly take a whole lot of presumption on the part of the audience to see how it got there.
The subtleties were definitely there in many places. A big example that really impressed me early on was Lupin. He looked absolutely fucking haggared. Given that he looked rough around the edges in Prisoner of Azkaban, but here he looked beat the fuck up. He was the first I noted it in and everybody else had it going on, everyone looked tired and worn down, exactly as they should. The only person who looked to be in better shape than before was Sirius, but he really had nowhere to go but up from when last we saw him.
Michael Gambon, for his smaller role, knocked it out of the park for me. He made the most of every single second of screen time. One of my personal favorites was the reluctant look on his face when he retreated from Trelwaney's sacking with Harry quite obviously trying to get his attention.
The newcomers were fantastic. Lynch's Lovegood seems to get lost in the shuffle of all the rave review I've heard for Staunton's role. Lynch absolutely pulled me into the role with her ditzy and spacey performance. Even the vacant look on her face worked. Pretty much exactly as I imagined her.
That's not to detract from Ms. Staunton, who did a brilliant job with Umbridge. The girl I saw it with agreed that, though she didn't look quite like we would picture, she had never been this...unsettling in the books. It'd be really hard to find an actress to have done so well with the role, and I'll take the visual loss for the sheer sugar coated evil Staunton brought to the table.
All the returning regulars pleased me just as well. Rickman was brilliant as always. Maggie Smith, though I would love to have seen more of her, was fantastic as usual. The Twins were outstanding. There were really very few outright lacking performances, in my mind (Though Katie Leung left something to be desired, I'm not sure if that was her or that Cho has always utterly bored me to tears).
I don't believe I've seen anyone argue the merits of the effects and the actions, but they bear mentioning: absolutely spectacular. That final fight at the Department of Mysteries was excellent.
The obvious liberties taken all worked for me. Obviously, there are going to be things cut, but most of the changes to the pacing seemed to make complete sense to me. Most of the sacrifices seem to be insubstantial to the overall plot and experience compared to other things that made it in.
Though I would've loved to see more on Neville and an accurate telling of the original prophecy, a lot of time was saved on that. It would've eaten a good ten to fifteen minutes to really get the meat of that plot.
George and Fred's exit worked fine for me, as most of it was tied to the end of Quidditch and the confiscation of their brooms, something that would've taken a good deal of time to delve into accurately. Coinciding it with OWLs also tied that all up rather nicely.
It would have been nice to see more Kreacher, but he really was just a means to an end in most situations. The way they expedited Harry's decision to head to the Ministry worked perfectly fine for me.
All told, I obviously loved it. I will likely see it again in theaters and will most definitely be buying it on DVD. It'll take at least another viewing for me to decide where it places on my rankings in terms of each movie, but at worst it's number two. If I enjoy it as much the second time through, it'll take the place of Prisoner of Azkaban as my favorite.
