I don’t typically go see movies I expect to hate.

Life is too short, popcorn is too expensive, and reclining theater seats are far too comfortable to waste on something I already assume is going to annoy me. Sometimes I’ll stumble across something on TV that looks sketchy and end up enjoying it more than expected. Joe Dirt, for example, is not exactly the sort of film critics place reverently on a marble pedestal, but I liked it a lot more than they did.

Of course, that’s not hard.

Critics tend to start the day looking like someone peed in their Cheerios, and then they write that way for the rest of the afternoon. Every movie is expected to be art, and the ones that fail to reach that lofty standard are treated as personal insults. You can almost hear the outrage between the lines, as if the director and producers broke into the critic’s house, tied him to a chair, and forced him to watch the movie against his will.

I have seriously considered starting a new column called “Reviewing the Reviewers.”

Tangent ended.

The real answer is that there are movies I didn’t expect to hate so much as movies I put off watching because I simply had no interest in them, no matter how many people raved about how wonderful they were.

Exhibit A is the Harry Potter series.

When the books were taking over the world, I wasn’t especially interested. My daughter didn’t care about reading them, so they never became part of our family culture. When the movies came out, we didn’t rush to the theater. We didn’t even stroll slowly to the theater. We just sort of let the whole phenomenon pass by while the rest of the world sorted itself into houses and argued over whether Snape was evil.

For years, I knew of Harry Potter without actually knowing Harry Potter.

Then, within the last couple of years, I finally watched the first movie.

And I liked it.

So I watched the next one.

And then the next one.

And before long, I had watched the whole series and realized I had been missing out for years. The world-building was better than I expected. The characters grew on me. The story got darker and richer as it went along. And somewhere along the way, I went from reluctant latecomer to actual fan.

Now I even have a few Hogwarts wands in my classroom that I use as pointers, which is not something I would have predicted back when everyone else was standing in line for midnight book releases.

So yes, I wish I hadn’t waited so long.

That said, I still don’t get butterbeer. It’s diabetes in a cup.

And Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans?

No, thank you.

Some magic should remain forbidden.