Director:
David Yates
Cast:
Daniel Radcliffe .... Harry Potter
Summary:
Those pesky kids are back, and ready to rock Dumbledore's house of magical horrors once again. For some reason, no one STILL wants to believe that Voldemort is arisen again, and so Harry seems to be all alone. Meanwhile, he's also catching glimpses of Voldemort's evildoings, and is struggling with hormonal issues with Cho Chang, while seeming to also get a little somethin' somethin' on the side with a blond haired barefoot hippie named Luna Lovegood.
Review:
After reading book five of the series, I swore off reading any more. I hated that book sooo, so very much. I got angry in all the wrong places, was tired of the worn out schemes provided by Rowling's expansive imagination in CONCEPT, but has by then become apparent that her level of imagination is rather limited. On top of that, there's a stupid trial against Harry for using magic in front of a Muggle (What. The. HELL, man?!), Dumbledore's assholery comes to a head, and I'm wishing for everyone to get their heads out of their own asses.
My hopes were that the movie presentation of the book I hated so much will not be such a hard pill to swallow. I was pretty much right. Phoenix was watchable fair, and slightly entertaining. I just couldn't help but wonder what the point was for Luna Lovegood. I may be a pretty liberal dude, but I hate hippies. This girl was uninteresting, to say the least. I hate the fact that every scene she's in it's as if she's smiling at an unseen beauty, and nothing seems to affect her negatively. Plus, she says slightly non-sequitorial phrases throughout for no reason except to make her seem avante gardey and unique. Well, poop on that. There's a better word for it: pretentious. Look it up, Rowling. She's NOT River Tam.
My next complaint lies in the underuse of Cho Chang. She's in quite a handful of scenes, but she almost comes across as a mute. If you're just going to film reaction shots through half the movie, either fill those in with some quips that she can fill the empty spaces with, or just don't include her in close up during these scenes. It was worst when Harry makes his speach to the students that want to learn the Dark Arts, and Harry mentions Cedric... they show Chang's face about the 30th time without her talking. Enough! Finally, she does have her scene in which Harry and her kiss, and I think after that scene, she says one more line through the rest of the flick. Yet, she's always there, lurking in frame shot after shot... Kinda scary, actually.
The final major complaint is with Minerva McGonagall, the new Dark Arts teacher. Number one, she should never EVER do her high pitched titter. Ever. Second, she needs to die, and I mean from scene one. On top of that, I don't understand (once again) how things can get so out of hand at Hogwarts, yet nothing gets done to fix these problems. Whenever an obstacle arrives in a new movie, it's based off of events that should be easily remedied in the Muggle world. Somehow, though, in a world of magic and HUMAN BEINGS, the simplest of matters and most monstrous of injustices get overlooked.
All of that aside, I was entranced with Alan Rickman and his amazing performance. I love that dude. He could do anything and make it golden. Hermione is getting hotter. The final showdown with all the wands and flashing colors was pretty. It wasn't as exciting as I was hoping, but still, it was fun. And Nymphadora... WOW! Yowza! She's HOT! I hope she really IS a nympho! Where's THAT movie?!
The Harry Potter fans will most likely soak this one in just as much as every single other one in the series. They will be mad that it isn't a word for word, page by page runthrough of the book, but for those folks I say, "Get a life!" and understand the difference between books and movies, and know that compromises will always be needed. For someone like me, who hated the book... it wasn't all that bad. I can't wait until the series is over, though, so I can stop hearing about Potter as much, and I won't have to feel like a completist and watch the next one in the bunch, even if I don't really feel like it.
GRADE: C
TRIVIA: Although I swore off reading the rest of the series, I did already read 5 of them. I swore not to buy the other books, though. On a whim, during my second jet lagged night back in Hawaii, my friend's bookshelf had book 6. I thought I'd read until I was tired. This was at 10pm. After 70 pages, I still wasn't sleepy. 200 pages later, I thought, "I wonder how far this will go." 4am rolls around, I've read the whole book and STILL wasn't tired.
So, I guess I'll walk down the street and look for one of the copies of book seven that's sure to be falling out of the sky. After all, I've gone this far, right?
Reviewed: 9/1/07