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Harry Potter
I want to like the Harry Potter movies; I really do. I thought the first one was very well-done (good story and visually stunning), and the third recovered from the damage done in the second. And I don't dislike the current movie; I just had trouble seeing a lot of good in it. (Hmm. Is it possible that the Harry Potter movies suffer from Star-Trek-movie syndrome?)
I haven't read the book. I know it was something over 600 pages, so I assume they had to do a lot of cutting. Given that, I was surprised to find myself thinking, in a couple places, "they could have trimmed this scene to make room for something else". Harry's fight with his dragon was the most prominent of these; it was a fine scene, and it would have been an equally-fine scene shortened by two minutes.
I found the storytelling in this one somewhat lacking. Ok, am I to understand that Voldemort's followers needed some of Harry's blood to reconstitute the big V, so they planted an agent whose job was to rig things in this big international tourney that everyone would be paying attention to, so that Harry would touch the cup and be transported to the graveyard? You'd think there'd be easier ways to get a blood sample. So I assume that Harry's actual presence was required, but that didn't come through.
We saw that in rounds two and three people could withdraw from the tourney. Could they in the first round? Since Harry wasn't hot on this in the first place and never consented to compete, why didn't he just withdraw from each round at the first opportunity? I understand that the story needed him not to do so, but the question should have been addressed on-screen. Only in the second trial did we see that there are real, unfortunate consequences to withdrawing.
Is there no consideration at all for a contestant who didn't enter and doesn't satisfy the rules? They said this is a magical contract, but contracts are generally agreed upon, not imposed. This sounds more like a curse.
Speaking of curses, what did the second one in the class do? It was obviously unpleasant for the victim, but so would being shot with fireballs, and that spell isn't on the forbidden list.
I would like to thank the producers for not showing the Quiddich match. I understand that this was a big part of the book, but I've found the past Quiddich scenes to be mostly boring with brief moments of excitement.
I thought the dream sequences and Harry's look into Dumbledore's pool were well-done -- creepy and other-worldly but not egregiously so.
The previews were disappointing. Here's what I remember:
- Ice Age 2: seems to be mostly sight gags. (I didn't see the first one.)
- Monster House: the look was similar to The Incredibles; I didn't notice if it was the same people. I was kind of surprised to see Spielburg's name on this one.
- Happy Feet: Huh? Is this really two hours of animated penguins dancing?
- a Superman movie (I don't remember an actual title): I would be favorably inclined to a Superman movie, but the preview for this particular one kind of creeped me out. The Superman I remember was hastily put into a spaceship and shot off a dying planet in the hopes he would survive somewhere; that is not at all in keeping with a deep, booming voice that said, essentially, "I sent my only son to redeem this world".
no subject
That would be crucio or the Cruciatus curse, which causes excruciating pain and is used for torture. An important blink-and-you'll-miss-it point in the movie (mentioned in passing during the pensieve flashback to the trial) was that the Longbottoms - Neville's parents - were tortured with Cruciatus by the Death Eaters, which is why he knew of the curse and why he was freaking out even more than the others when watching it demonstrated. In the book, Dumbledore explains to Harry (as part of the debrief for the pensieve scene, when Harry puts two and two together) that they lived, but were driven insane and institutionalized. Neville and his grandmother (who now raises him) visit them on holidays, and they don't recognize him.
Two hours of animated penguins with Robin Williams' voice dancing, which I'm sure you'll agree makes it all better. IMDB has the tag line "Into the world of the Emperor Penguins, who find their soul mates through song, a penguin is born who cannot sing. But he can tap dance something fierce!" and also cites Elijah Wood, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, and a number of other presumably expensive voices.
Between the penguins from Madagascar and March of the Penguins, they're very hot for as cool as they are - and the song and dance sequences with the lemurs were some of the best parts of the former - so this would have almost pitched itself to the studios. I have hopes, but, you know, penguins and me go back a ways...
no subject
Oh, ok. I didn't perceive "excrutiating pain" in the movie. Thanks for explaining.
An important blink-and-you'll-miss-it point in the movie
I guess I blinked; this adds a lot of important information.
Two hours of animated penguins with Robin Williams' voice
Oh! How did I miss that Robin Williams is involved?
no subject
Definitely would have edited slightly differently, although I can't fault them too much given how much they're squeezing into a two hour feature.