Title basically says it all, and I've had the chance to say this in comments a few times over the years, but I really feel like it deserves its own post, and I'd love to hear how others feel about this opinion.

First off it's pretty non-controversial to say that the first three HP directors were pretty great in their own ways. Chris Columbus, while on the surface the most "plain" in his directing style, brought an undeniable sense of magic and wonder to the first two films, plus his experience working with child actors (Home Alone) clearly paid off in the defining performances. It helps that his movies were also the most complete adaptations. Then you have Alfonso Cuaron, nuff said there, people love PoA and his direction, it brought new energy and excitement to the franchise. Next came famed British director Mike Newell for GoF, now I know this movie gets some shit for being the first to really cut a lot of stuff from the book due to length, and also "asked Dumbledore calmly" memes, but in terms of actual direction, GoF gave us some amazing emotional/scary moments (Cedric's death & aftermath) and set-pieces, dynamic, character-focused directing, my personal favorite of all the films.

And then we come to David Yates, someone with like 1/10th of the experience of either previous director, who for some reason was given the keys to the entire franchise. Now there's a million individual scenes and moments I could point to for why DY sucks, but one thing is just an...awkwardness to his direction and editing (which I have to assume he played a big part in): we cut away from characters when important lines are spoken, scenes feel rushed, the visual style is dreary (not to mention inconsistent between films), there's never any kind of visceral punch to scenes to that really need it (Sirius's death, Dumbledore's death, in my opinion don't pack a the punch like Cedric's even tho they should be like 10x more impactful), Yates apparently thinks slo-mo is a great stand-in for actual emotion. To me the only legit memorable, well-directed DY scene for me is the Dumbledore/Voldemort battle in OotP. DY wasn't helped by the fact that the scripts he directed were some of the poorest adaptations of the novels (OotP is the longest book but somehow the shortest movie, make it make sense), but the fact that the climactic battle and Voldy's death in DH were so epically fucked up under his watch seals the deal on his rubbish directing performance.

I'm sure lots of this comes off as vague and subjective, and but I really want to know if other people feel this way, or strongly disagree. And if you agree feel free to reply with more specific examples of David Yates' incompetence. End rant.