HP5 Movie Review
Jul. 12th, 2007 08:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yours_trulyI have processed, I have contemplated, I have compared, and I have come to the same conclusion that I did last night: Order of the Phoenix was the best Potter film yet.
*spoilers*
I have soooo many incoherent thoughts about this movie that I don’t think I’ll really be able to organize them into a cohesive review, but please bear with me!
THE GOOD
The HP films usually do a pretty darn good job with their casting (the only characters they’ve gotten grossly wrong in my opinion are Lupin and Wormtail), and the new characters in Order of the Phoenix were no exception. Evanna Lynch as Luna was absolutely magical. She was Luna, seriously. She was ethereal, weird, disconcerting, and sweet all at the same time. I am so happy that the part went to someone from the fandom who loves the character as much as we all do. She did an amazing job with it. She and Dan had great chemistry, perhaps even a little too much, because I was really getting a Harry/Luna vibe from the flick (well, I was picking up vibes between Harry and someone else, too, but we’ll get to that later).
Imelda Staunton in the role of Umbridge was also perfection. People always yell at me when I admit that Umbridge is one of my favourite characters, but it’s because I just love to hate her. She infuriates me, she amuses me, and she scares me, and Staunton managed to get all of that into the movie, so brava. Similarly, Helena Bonham Carter was great as Bellatrix, even with only three lines. I’m not sure how much acting she had to do, since I’m pretty sure Bonham Carter is a little crazy herself, but it was great to watch.
Michael Gambon will never replace Richard Harris for me as Dumbledore (I was rooting for Donald Sutherland to replace Harris), but he was oh so so so much better in this than in GoF. Whoever slipped him some Prozac gets a gold star. Gambon’s Dumbledore this time around was calm, cool, and collected, just like he needed to be, even if that slight twinkle of eccentricity was still a bit beyond his grasp.
Did anyone watch Ginny very carefully in this one? She was breaking my heart! They always made sure to have her in shots with Harry and Cho and stuff, and they would linger on her just a bit as she looked hurt and sad, and it was great! I can’t wait for Half-Blood Prince now. I hope that Dan and Bonnie have enough chemistry to make Harry and Ginny’s love believable.
Other amazing things include Fred and George’s escape, the Wall of Decrees, that adorable scene with Fred and George comforting the little boy after a detention, the initial DA interest meeting, and the Black family tree/tapestry room. Way to make sure that there were tons of people whose names started with A in the shots, Newell. Crafty. I still don’t think RAB is Regulus, though.
I loved the political undertones in this film, even if they were a bit heavy-handed sometimes. Donating long scenes to speeches written just for the movie that go on about how, “fear makes people do things, Harry, it’s fear that rules people’s lives and allows them to be taken advantage of, blah blah blah,” bothered me just a bit. Believe me, I’m all about making political connections to Harry Potter, and these were points that I agreed with, but a bit more subtlety could have been used.
Speaking of subtlety, Dan Radcliffe simply amazed me this time around. Let’s pretend for the next paragraph or so that I’m not pre-disposed to worship everything he does because I find him ridiculously attractive. Dan had CAPSLOCK!HARRY down pat, with maybe even more subtlety and nuance than Jo wrote him with. Had the movie been written a little better to include a few other key scenes (*cough*smashing*dumbledore’s*office*cough*), then Dan could have shown off even more. As it was, I thought his scenes were brilliant, especially when he finally loses it with Dumbledore, his reaction to Sirius’s death, and the possession scene.
Speaking of Sirius’s death and the possession scene, let’s talk about the entire Department of Mysteries sequence. There are things about it that I adored, but also things that annoyed me. Overall, though, it left me feeling absolutely elated, so most of it will be discussed here, and the things that bothered me in the next section.
I loved the way they did the Hall of Prophecy. It wouldn’t have hurt them to include the entire contents of the prophecy, but when all those shelves came crashing down as the kids ran I was just soooo excited. I had no problem with the segue to the Death Chamber, and the fight there with all the Death Eaters was equally brilliant. As I said before, Dan’s reaction to Sirius was heartbreaking, and I loved the way they removed the sound and slowed everything down.
The battle in the Atrium between Dumbledore and Voldemort was equally incredible. It could have used a break or two for some of the dialogue in the book about there being other ways to destroy a man than to kill him, but I’m extremely happy with it. The Snake of Fire, the smashing windows, the water chamber… It was just as badass as the book. Harry’s possession was great acting on Dan’s part, and it definitely got the job done making the point about love being Harry’s best weapon (I adored the montages of scenes from the other movies), and overall I loved it, but it could have been written so much better.
THE BAD
I’m no book purist, trust me; I’m all about cutting things and changing things so that the movies can be the best they can be. But I really really wanted to see Voldemort tell Dumbledore to “kill the boy”, and then hear Harry beg for death. It is an extremely important theme in the books that, yes, there are things worse than death: suffering, selfishness, pain, and the deaths of loved ones. The movie completely avoided bringing up this theme, and I’m sort of disappointed. Also, no way in hell does Harry say that he feels sorry for Voldemort. He wouldn’t even say it in HBP after watching the crap upbringing that Tom Riddle had.
The next thing that totally irked me was the Veil. Um, wtf, David Yates? You guys couldn’t even get a piece of fabric right? You decided that “tattered curtain” meant “wall of smoky, watery, vapor kind of stuff”???? An AK killing Sirius wouldn’t have even bothered me if he had still fallen through a nice, normal, curtain kind of Veil. But having him stand there like a mannequin while tendrils of vapor crawl out and pull him in? Not cool, WB. It was awkward and weird and just wrong. Grrrrr.
I obviously already mentioned that the omission of the scene where Harry smashes Dumbledore’s office really disappointed me (because I really really love me some angsty Harry), but believe it or not, the next thing that bothered me a lot was the inclusion of a certain plot-line.
Grawpy, Grawpy, Grawpy. Grawp is to the Harry Potter fandom as Jar-Jar Binks is to the Star Wars fandom. Pretty much no one likes him. His scenes in the movie were adorable, but what in the world do they do for the plot? It would have been so easy to cut him and then have more time for other things (more on time in a bit). The only thing that the fandom has been able to think of is that Grawp must have a big role to play in Deathly Hallows. Otherwise, his existence is more or less completely unjustified, lol.
Before I discuss the length of the movie as the last thing that I disliked, I have to ask a question. I said earlier that I felt a lot of Harry/Luna chemistry in the movie, but I have to admit that I felt even more between Harry and Sirius. Am I tooooooootally off base in seeing a creepy amount of sexual tension between the two of them in this flick? I hate when people ship Harry/Sirius in the books, because I never saw any implications of that kind of relationship (plus there’s, you know, like 30 years of age difference!), but the amount of winking and hugging and private smiles in the film got a bit out of hand, in my humble opinion. I was uncomfortable watching it.
So, the last thing I will discuss is my usual complaint about the running time of the films. They’re too damn short, WB! This was the SHORTEST movie, for the LONGEST book in the series! Where are your brains??? I saw maybe five kids under the age of 13 last night at the theater. Nine-year-olds do not make up the majority of the fandom any more, and even if they did I guarantee you they would happily sit through a 3-hour Potter film. It will not affect your ticket sales. So please, I BEG YOU, give us the movie we, Jo, the actors, and the books deserve by allowing for a longer running time. Maybe then they wouldn’t feel like $300 million PowerPoint presentations at times.
And with that, Harry Potter Week is officially underway for me. Only eight days until the book. =/ I really hope the fandom continues strong at least until the last movie. I went to see OotP last night with my dad and sister, but ended up sitting next to a group of girls and we all laughed together through the whole movie and talked about it afterward. We didn’t need to know one another’s ages, or names, or anything, we were just happy to talk together about HP. That’s what the fandom is like. It doesn’t matter if you’ve ever met before or will ever see one another again; you’re instantly friends because you have HP in common.
*spoilers*
I have soooo many incoherent thoughts about this movie that I don’t think I’ll really be able to organize them into a cohesive review, but please bear with me!
THE GOOD
The HP films usually do a pretty darn good job with their casting (the only characters they’ve gotten grossly wrong in my opinion are Lupin and Wormtail), and the new characters in Order of the Phoenix were no exception. Evanna Lynch as Luna was absolutely magical. She was Luna, seriously. She was ethereal, weird, disconcerting, and sweet all at the same time. I am so happy that the part went to someone from the fandom who loves the character as much as we all do. She did an amazing job with it. She and Dan had great chemistry, perhaps even a little too much, because I was really getting a Harry/Luna vibe from the flick (well, I was picking up vibes between Harry and someone else, too, but we’ll get to that later).
Imelda Staunton in the role of Umbridge was also perfection. People always yell at me when I admit that Umbridge is one of my favourite characters, but it’s because I just love to hate her. She infuriates me, she amuses me, and she scares me, and Staunton managed to get all of that into the movie, so brava. Similarly, Helena Bonham Carter was great as Bellatrix, even with only three lines. I’m not sure how much acting she had to do, since I’m pretty sure Bonham Carter is a little crazy herself, but it was great to watch.
Michael Gambon will never replace Richard Harris for me as Dumbledore (I was rooting for Donald Sutherland to replace Harris), but he was oh so so so much better in this than in GoF. Whoever slipped him some Prozac gets a gold star. Gambon’s Dumbledore this time around was calm, cool, and collected, just like he needed to be, even if that slight twinkle of eccentricity was still a bit beyond his grasp.
Did anyone watch Ginny very carefully in this one? She was breaking my heart! They always made sure to have her in shots with Harry and Cho and stuff, and they would linger on her just a bit as she looked hurt and sad, and it was great! I can’t wait for Half-Blood Prince now. I hope that Dan and Bonnie have enough chemistry to make Harry and Ginny’s love believable.
Other amazing things include Fred and George’s escape, the Wall of Decrees, that adorable scene with Fred and George comforting the little boy after a detention, the initial DA interest meeting, and the Black family tree/tapestry room. Way to make sure that there were tons of people whose names started with A in the shots, Newell. Crafty. I still don’t think RAB is Regulus, though.
I loved the political undertones in this film, even if they were a bit heavy-handed sometimes. Donating long scenes to speeches written just for the movie that go on about how, “fear makes people do things, Harry, it’s fear that rules people’s lives and allows them to be taken advantage of, blah blah blah,” bothered me just a bit. Believe me, I’m all about making political connections to Harry Potter, and these were points that I agreed with, but a bit more subtlety could have been used.
Speaking of subtlety, Dan Radcliffe simply amazed me this time around. Let’s pretend for the next paragraph or so that I’m not pre-disposed to worship everything he does because I find him ridiculously attractive. Dan had CAPSLOCK!HARRY down pat, with maybe even more subtlety and nuance than Jo wrote him with. Had the movie been written a little better to include a few other key scenes (*cough*smashing*dumbledore’s*office*cough*), then Dan could have shown off even more. As it was, I thought his scenes were brilliant, especially when he finally loses it with Dumbledore, his reaction to Sirius’s death, and the possession scene.
Speaking of Sirius’s death and the possession scene, let’s talk about the entire Department of Mysteries sequence. There are things about it that I adored, but also things that annoyed me. Overall, though, it left me feeling absolutely elated, so most of it will be discussed here, and the things that bothered me in the next section.
I loved the way they did the Hall of Prophecy. It wouldn’t have hurt them to include the entire contents of the prophecy, but when all those shelves came crashing down as the kids ran I was just soooo excited. I had no problem with the segue to the Death Chamber, and the fight there with all the Death Eaters was equally brilliant. As I said before, Dan’s reaction to Sirius was heartbreaking, and I loved the way they removed the sound and slowed everything down.
The battle in the Atrium between Dumbledore and Voldemort was equally incredible. It could have used a break or two for some of the dialogue in the book about there being other ways to destroy a man than to kill him, but I’m extremely happy with it. The Snake of Fire, the smashing windows, the water chamber… It was just as badass as the book. Harry’s possession was great acting on Dan’s part, and it definitely got the job done making the point about love being Harry’s best weapon (I adored the montages of scenes from the other movies), and overall I loved it, but it could have been written so much better.
THE BAD
I’m no book purist, trust me; I’m all about cutting things and changing things so that the movies can be the best they can be. But I really really wanted to see Voldemort tell Dumbledore to “kill the boy”, and then hear Harry beg for death. It is an extremely important theme in the books that, yes, there are things worse than death: suffering, selfishness, pain, and the deaths of loved ones. The movie completely avoided bringing up this theme, and I’m sort of disappointed. Also, no way in hell does Harry say that he feels sorry for Voldemort. He wouldn’t even say it in HBP after watching the crap upbringing that Tom Riddle had.
The next thing that totally irked me was the Veil. Um, wtf, David Yates? You guys couldn’t even get a piece of fabric right? You decided that “tattered curtain” meant “wall of smoky, watery, vapor kind of stuff”???? An AK killing Sirius wouldn’t have even bothered me if he had still fallen through a nice, normal, curtain kind of Veil. But having him stand there like a mannequin while tendrils of vapor crawl out and pull him in? Not cool, WB. It was awkward and weird and just wrong. Grrrrr.
I obviously already mentioned that the omission of the scene where Harry smashes Dumbledore’s office really disappointed me (because I really really love me some angsty Harry), but believe it or not, the next thing that bothered me a lot was the inclusion of a certain plot-line.
Grawpy, Grawpy, Grawpy. Grawp is to the Harry Potter fandom as Jar-Jar Binks is to the Star Wars fandom. Pretty much no one likes him. His scenes in the movie were adorable, but what in the world do they do for the plot? It would have been so easy to cut him and then have more time for other things (more on time in a bit). The only thing that the fandom has been able to think of is that Grawp must have a big role to play in Deathly Hallows. Otherwise, his existence is more or less completely unjustified, lol.
Before I discuss the length of the movie as the last thing that I disliked, I have to ask a question. I said earlier that I felt a lot of Harry/Luna chemistry in the movie, but I have to admit that I felt even more between Harry and Sirius. Am I tooooooootally off base in seeing a creepy amount of sexual tension between the two of them in this flick? I hate when people ship Harry/Sirius in the books, because I never saw any implications of that kind of relationship (plus there’s, you know, like 30 years of age difference!), but the amount of winking and hugging and private smiles in the film got a bit out of hand, in my humble opinion. I was uncomfortable watching it.
So, the last thing I will discuss is my usual complaint about the running time of the films. They’re too damn short, WB! This was the SHORTEST movie, for the LONGEST book in the series! Where are your brains??? I saw maybe five kids under the age of 13 last night at the theater. Nine-year-olds do not make up the majority of the fandom any more, and even if they did I guarantee you they would happily sit through a 3-hour Potter film. It will not affect your ticket sales. So please, I BEG YOU, give us the movie we, Jo, the actors, and the books deserve by allowing for a longer running time. Maybe then they wouldn’t feel like $300 million PowerPoint presentations at times.
And with that, Harry Potter Week is officially underway for me. Only eight days until the book. =/ I really hope the fandom continues strong at least until the last movie. I went to see OotP last night with my dad and sister, but ended up sitting next to a group of girls and we all laughed together through the whole movie and talked about it afterward. We didn’t need to know one another’s ages, or names, or anything, we were just happy to talk together about HP. That’s what the fandom is like. It doesn’t matter if you’ve ever met before or will ever see one another again; you’re instantly friends because you have HP in common.
