widow, the later movies (3 and 4) will make more sense if you read the books first. Because the later books are so thick, several smaller storylines or essential (IMO) details are left out, and it might be a bit confusing to watch before reading.
The books are very fast reading for me, I just re-read the entire series in two and a half weeks time. (I am a fairly fast reader though)
Personally, I like reading books before seeing movies, mostly for the reason I stated about leaving details out. I'll give you an example. When Sahara came out last summer, several smaller storylines were left out of the movie. I've read the book half a dozen times, so the movie made sense to me in places that didn't make sense to my hubby and our friends, particularly the helicopter scene at the end. I'm glad that I knew what was going on, because it made understanding the movie easier. I ended up feeling satisfied with the movie, while hubby and friends were critical about certain parts; I knew that there was no way to get all of the info in the book into a 2 hour movie...and the same goes for the 3rd and particularly 4th Harry Potter movies. Just my 2 cents
