We were told that the movie was 2 hours and forty minutes long but I noticed that at 2 hours and 37 minutes I was already on my way back to the car after the appropriate restroom stop. I know that we started exactly at 10:00.
Enjoyed the movie a lot but I was much more attuned to the pieces cut out and changes in dialogue to make it fit the shorter time requirements of movies. I could have stayed longer myself.
As far as sameness - That is a valid observation but each book follows a school year and we know that they do have a pattern. Each book begins in the summer before September 1 train to Hogwarts, continues through 3 Quidditch matches spaced over the year, Halloween feast, Christmas holidays, Easter holidays and end of term with the final scenes on the train back home or at the station. Same pattern but we learn more information about the wizard world with each book and each time Harry has to deal with different forces that may or may not be really the same forces and rely upon himself to deal with whatever comes at him. Perhaps you notice the sameness more because many of the important details in the books can't be fit in the films and they have to go for the high action sequences.
I don't love the screening room that we sat in because it is so noisy. I can hear the timer go off on the projector every time the reel is about to be changed and the sound doesn't come on right in the speakers at each change. Also the screen is about 10' wide and the picture was cropped so that the changeover dots weren't even visible. I can hear the projectionist running the film off the cores and onto reels during the whole showing. It will be much better in a real theater!