I’m a
couple years behind the times, but I am working my way through the Harry Potter
movies.
For past Harry Potter Reviews see
Book Reviews:
* Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,
* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ,
* Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
(The first 3 books in the series I read (or listened to rather) before I had started up my book review project.
Previous Movie Reviews:
* Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince here
* A review of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" here,
* Some thoughts on the Goblet of Fire here,
* A brief mention of "The Prisoner of Azkaban" here,
and everything else was before I started regularly reviewing movies on this blog.
As for this
movie, I suppose the first thing that needs discussing is:
The Controversial Decision to Split it into
Two Parts
Much ink
has already been spilled over the decision to split the last Harry Potter movie
into two halves. More probably does not
need to be said on the subject, but since this is my blog, I’m going to go
ahead add my two cents anyway.
From a
story telling perspective, it would have made much more sense to split the
fifth or sixth book into two parts instead.
These were the stories that really suffered in their abridgement to the
big screen.
The seventh
book wasn’t actually as long as the 5th or 6th book. And, although the beginning of the book
started out with a bang, and although it ended with a bang, the middle really
lagged. Harry, Ron and Hermione just go
camping and spend several pages arguing with each other.
(Stephen King wrote of the 7th book, that In Deathly Hallows, for instance, there's an awful lot of wandering around and camping in that tent; it starts to feel like Ms. Rowling running out the clock on the school year to fit the format of the previous six books.)
So,
ironically the 7th book is the one that least deserves the double
movie treatment.
All that
being said, I understand that from a marketing perspective you can’t really
split the 5th installment into two parts, but you can get away with
milking the climax.
But let’s
change the question. Putting aside the
fact that arguably “The Order of the Phoenix”
or “The Half-Blood Prince,” should have been two parters instead, and judging
this movie solely on its own merits, do I think it benefits from being in two
parts?
Yeah a
bit. All the previous 6 movies have felt
so rushed, so it’s nice that at least one book in the series gets a more
relaxed pace in its transition onto the big screen.
I know a
lot of people were upset at what they saw as a blatant attempt to keep milking
the Harry Potter cash cow, but from the perspective of a viewer I don’t mind.
The Review
I thought
the movie worked alright as an adaptation of the book.
The problem
with all of these Harry Potter movies is that they never really come into their
own as movies in their own right, and feel just like abridged versions of the
book. And that’s true of this one as
well. But by this point in the series, I’ve
come to accept that.
And so I
wasn’t surprised when characters were introduced briefly on the screen, had a
couple lines of dialogue, and the promptly disappeared again. We all know who they are from the books, and
so it’s okay if the movie doesn’t have time to develop half of the characters
it introduces. I also wasn’t surprised
when the movie never really reached a satisfying climax before ending.
The Harry
Potter Universe has a lot of colorful supporting characters, but in this book
they are unfortunately neglected as the trio of Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione
go off on their own. And that’s
reflected in this movie as well. There’s
one brief scene when the baddies board the train heading to Hogwarts, but for
this movie that’s all we see of most of Harry’s classmates.
Hopefully
they’ll get some screen time in the next movie.
The action
scenes in this movie are decent, but nothing special.
Although many
different directors have taken their turn at Harry Potter, in all the movies,
action scenes have never been the director’s strong point. Nobody has yet figured out anything more
exciting to do in these scenes than have the characters point wands and yell
spells.
I’ll be
interested to see what they do with the big climatic battle at the end of the
book (which will no doubt be in the second movie) but my expectations are going
to be low going into it.
The very
beginning action scene was also disappointing. It was set at night, which (at least on my tv)
made it dark and confusing to follow.
(If I’m not mistaken, the same scene happened in daylight in the
book. Am I remembering that right?)
Plus most
of the action occurred off screen and was only referenced later by the
characters. Unless I missed something,
Mad-Eye Moody got killed off-screen (which was a bit of
an ignoble send off to one of the more colorful characters) and George also lost his ear off-screen.
Also during
certain scenes I wasn’t exactly sure why sometimes the characters used their
magic powers to teleport themselves, and sometimes they ran. During that chase scene in the woods, I
thought it would have made much more sense for the characters to teleport
instead as they had in previous scenes.
(Again, with the caveat of unless I
missed something. Was there some
reason why they couldn’t teleport in that scene?)
Oh well,
onto the last movie in the series next.
Stay tuned, I’ll get around to it eventually.
Other Thoughts
Given how everything
in Hollywood
gets re-made eventually, it’s not inconceivable that in 50 years time someone
will try and remake the Harry Potter
series.
When that
happens, I recommend Harry Potter get
the Game of Thrones, and turned into
a TV show instead. Each book could be
converted into one season. This way
things won’t have to be so rushed or have so much cut out.
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky - Phone Interview - November 16th, 2012
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky - Phone Interview - November 16th, 2012
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1: Movie Review (Scripted)
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