By the way -- my Harry Potter review. I would give it 3 stars of 4. Rupert Grint has turned into a good actor, but he has nothing to do in this movie. Emma Watson is pretty horrible, and Dan Radcliffe is uneven. His constant undercurrent of anger, which he demonstrates by ceaseless tremors and heavy breathing, is silly. He still underacts better than Helena Bonham Carter, though, who is playing a whack job but who nevertheless makes Bellatrix Lestrange more of a cartoon character than any villian in the series so far. Her literary counterpart is so much more scary -- Helena's seems as though she's malevolent and sadistic by accident of being a nutjob.
The book was really long and I'm rather impressed that so much made it into the movie, and although I wondered whether the almost impressionistic dashing from mini-scene to mini-scene would confuse someone like D who never read any of the books nor saw any of the movies, he tells me he followed it fine and that in itself is a directorial achievement.
The gal playing Luna Lovegood was wonderful -- I saw a review that likened her to 'Dakota Fanning after a conk on the head,' which is spot on. Kreacher the house-elf was present, and icky and evil, just enough; Imelda Staunton's Dolores Umbridge was perfect, although I found her more frightening toward the end as she starts to crumble a bit. I still think Alan Rickman is a much better villain as Snape than Ray Fiennes is as Voldemort, maybe because it's hard to emote without a nose, and I wasn't too impressed with V's battle with Dumbledore in the ministry. Scenes inside the Hall of Prophecy were really excellent -- the kids acted well and the setting was spooky and full of portent, as a prophetic place should be. Thank God the script left out the flying brain (?!).
The film was unrelenting in its darkness and sense of foreboding. It was like the Burgermeister Meisterburger was in charge of Hogwarts -- no fun, no toys allowed!! And yet the battle still hasn't really begun.
No comments:
Post a Comment