June 04, 2004

Harry Potter Misses the Snitch



Again this is written by Lo and she retains all original rights to the piece. There are plenty of reviews out there which like the movie, here's one who doesn't. And don't read it if you want the movie to be a surprise (obviously).

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Apparently, Harry Potter fans don't have to worry anymore about Lord Voldemort murdering Harry; it looks as though the new director will do it for him. While J.K. Rowlings The Prisoner of Azkaban has it all--excitement, characters, drama, death, quidditch--the movie misses the mark in many of these areas. The movie brushes past key plot points and focuses in on scenes that give the movie a distractingly creepy feel... and not scarey ghost story creepy but surrealistic creepy.

First, there is the matter of the new Professor Dumbledore. Not being big on change, I was preparing myself to be annoyed by this character at first. Nothing prepared me for what they've done to Dumbledore. In the scene with the Fat Lady's ripped photograph, he runs his fingers across it and you realize he has the nastiest, thickest, yellowest fingernails of all time. Further, he has several scenes that make him seem, rather than the wise and all-knowing Dumbledore of the first four books, like an old dotard who doesn't really know what's going on. This is going to hurt the series of movies in the long run because the mistake he has made over the course of the previous five years will not come as much of a shock if you think he's a fool all along.

Also, you wind up not caring much about the characters at all because the director left out scenes that would explain their motivations. The director left out all reference to the necessity of winning the Quidditch tournament, he didn't develop the idea that Harry's Patronus is the animagus shape his father used to take, and he blew right on by the extent of the horror the dementors inflict on him. Lupin was creepy, Snape never comes back ranting that Harry let Sirius out of the castle, Hermoine and Ron seem to be far more awkward/romantic together than necessary (a dangerous choice since none of us know where the last two books will take them), and several scenes are spoken so quickly that they are difficult to follow and feel rehearsed.

The lighting and cinematography are quite different in this movie as well. Much of the movie is trying to be symbolic of something, although you're never quite sure what that might be. The scenes are all very dark. This lack of contrast is distracting. It lacks the magic of the previous two films because it is dark and creepy throughout rather than building to the dark and creepy encounter with Sirius.

Finally, there are a few sexual references that make it hard to watch this movie. The first and most distracting comes when Lupin is telling Harry about his parents. He says, "Oh yes, I knew your mother," which really makes it sound like he knew her in the Biblical sense. This made a few of us laugh through what was supposed to be a serious part of the movie. Then when Sirius talks about knowing Harry's mother, you're reminded of Lupin and start laughing all over.

One of the redeeming qualities of the movie is the appearance of the dementors. These are about as scarey as you could hope, and the special effects make them very cool. The movie starts to take shape again at the end when Hermoine and Harry have to go back in time. Here it sticks more closely to the book, and so the plot comes back and the surrealistic camera angles go away. Another excellent scene is the scene with the boggart. There's nothing quite like seeing Snape in Neville's grandmother's clothes.

I give this movie a C or a C-, which is very discouraging because it is perhaps the best of the five books. I would recommend you see it because you will need to in order to follow the rest of the movies, but it relied too heavily on the fact that most of the viewers have read the books and used that as an excuse to avoid creating a coherent plot line. It's worth $6.50, though, to see Hermoine deck Malfoy, and the last half hour really does make up for a lot of the sins of the previous hour and a half. On the whole, they should have paid the last director more to stay with the project.

Posted by 10lees at June 4, 2004 01:29 PM