Harry Potter
Jul. 12th, 2007 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ria_oaksI'm exhausted... had to get up at 6:30 this morning to get the ferry up to work, and my body really can't handle only sleeping 6-7 hours. Was exhausted all day at work, and didn't do a heck of a lot honestly. ^^ And all this to see an ultimately disappointing movie on opening night... sigh. Guess I'm glad I went on opening night - I mean, I was looking forward to it a lot, and I like seeing movies like HP on opening night. But... I don't know. I really WANTED to like it, and I still really want to like it. I don't know if it's just that I was burnt out from having just re-read Order of the Phoenix as fast as possible over the weekend (having read the first 4 just before it, over the last few weeks) or if it really wasn't a very good movie. Maybe I need to see it again in a few monthes to decide. Either way, I'm honestly kinda tired of Harry right now, which feels horrible considering that the book launch is in a WEEK and I want to be super-excited about it. Probably shouldn't have re-read them all... I thought it'd get me excited, but instead it's just tired me out.
I think my main problem is that I just didn't FEEL anything from the movie. Hence, I'm not sure if it's me or the movie. But I just... felt numb through most of it. I'd expected to sob at Sirius's death, but I just kinda sniffed, felt sad, then moved on. I didn't feel the same fear and horror as I did in the book - the book just gets more and more depressing and dark and hopeless, and I didn't really get the same feeling from the movie even though I could tell it was trying to do that. I felt that they played some of the scenes with Umbridge, and with the educational decrees, up for laughs instead of making her as frightening and evil as she is in the books. Imelda Staunton was great, of course, but I didn't really HATE her the same way as I do in the book.
Obviously a great deal was cut out or compressed, which I expected but was still disappointed by. Not so much because they missed out on stuff that was too important, because they generally got in all the major plot points, but because the movie FELT compressed and too jerky, like they were trying to just ram a bunch of scenes together. After awhile I was just thinking "okay, so now that's going to happen... then they'll do that, then that, then they're at the Ministry, then it'll be over. Huh." It's hard to fault the movie for that, I suppose - OotP has a great deal of exposition, and frankly it's just a freaking huge book. It's a difficult book to translate into a movie, and thouigh I think they did a decent job it was hard for me to really enjoy. I try to enjoy the movies on their own right, generally - I loved the 3rd and 4th ones in spite of some glaring omissions/changes. But both of those were also highly enjoyable, fun, entertaining, and just plain well done movies, whereas this one, imo, was not. It wasn't really BAD, per se, but it wasn't fantastic.
And now, lists... stuff I liked:
- Luna - Evanna Lynch did a great job. She was very cute and dreamy, but I liked how they also showed that she's more than what she seems on the outside. I liked her bonding with Harry, though wow did it feel like they were trying to push Harry/Luna! I liked them talking about the Thestrals as outsiders, like themselves, and recognizing that loneliness in each other
- Imelda Staunton did a great job, as I already said. She was so horribly fake-sweet and sugary and PINK, dear god the PINK. I loved her office, loved the kittens in the plates (glad they kept that). I kinda felt like she was played for laughs more than she should have been, but she did a good job of portraying the teeth underneath all that fake fluff. ^^ She was pretty damned nasty, though as I said I still didn't feel quite the same amount of fear and foreboding about her as I do from the books. Maybe that's just me, I dunno...
- Dumbledore's Army - quite liked these scenes, overall. Thought they could have cut down on some of the montage sequences in favour of other scenes they cut, but I did generally like said montage sequences. Filch's attempts to get into the RoR made me laugh, too. ^^
- Fred and George's getaway - oh boys. :) I do love them... the fireworks were great, as was the giant W they spelled out at the end, heh. Enjoyed the WWW scenes in general, too, with them selling their stuff and testing it out on the first years and such.
- Bellatrix - Helena Bonham Carter was fantastic. Totally insane. Heh.
- Jason Isaacs... mm, you could just tell that he was having a blast being all evil and smarmy. :) And sexy. *cough* Ahh, I love that snake cane... too bad Lucius isn't around in the next one.
- Ralph Fiennes was once again excellent... he's perfect for the role. I really liked the shot of him destroying all the glass (I think?) in the Atrium during the final battle - that shot were he's got his arms outstretched and it's all falling down around him and tearing up the big poster of Fudge was great.
- Thestrals looked pretty cool, overall..
- Umbridge inspecting the other profs - esp her inspection of Snape, heh. Sorely missed her inspection of McGonagall, though.
- generally liked the Sirius/Harry scenes. The scene with the tapestry was good. Wish I'd felt sadder over his death... maybe it's just because I knew it was coming, and was just sitting there counting down the minutes until it'd happen. Meh. And wtf with her casting AK on him and him dying before he went through the veil? Meh. Doesn't matter much, I guess...
- Percy, yay! Okay, so hated that there was NO explanation as to his presence, but was happy to see him anyway. And wow, he looked pretty hot with his hair all slicked back. XD
- Tonks was cool, albeit underutilized.
- totally random thing, but I totally cracked up over the goat in the Hog's Head. Aberforth! Heee. XD
Think that's most of it... now onto the bad stuff/ranting. :)
- quite possibly the number one worst thing... Harry writhing on the bloody floor while thinking of how much he loooves his friends and trying to force Voldemort out of his mind. Dear GOD. Could they have over-dramaticized it more? They took a perfectly decent scene in which Harry is possessed by Voldy, thinks about Sirius, and pushes Voldy out of his mind because of his love for Sirius. Okay, I could accept that, it was a good scene which emphasized the importance of Harry's capacity to love and Voldemort's inability to do the same. But why go from that to a long drawn out scene of him flashing back on his friends and seeing their faces and writhing. on. the. floor.? Jesus. Just too over-the-top and cheesy, I thought it could have been done much better. Totally pulled me out of the movie at the point.
- Cho as the traitor - bwuh? I can understand them not wanting to bring in a new character just to betray them, but it seemed rather unfair to Cho... yeesh. Made her out to seem like a worse person than she is.
- lack of McGonagall was very disappointing. I loved her scenes in the book...
- wasn't overly fond of the Ministry scenes at the end... not really sure why. And wtf was with the DEs and the Order <i>flying</i>? It was kinda cool, I guess, but it seemed... odd.
- Grawp. Christ, what was up with that? Why did they feel the need to make him all sweet and cuddly and nice? And in love with Hermione? Oi.
- relative lack of Harry's teenaged angst and shouting and all. Okay, maybe that's a good thing, but.. I kept waiting for him to go into serious capslock rage!
- I know they had to do it, but... pages and PAGES of exposition reduced to 1-2 minute scenes. Ie. at the Dursleys' at the start, and with Dumbledore at the end. They could have fleshed those scenes out a BIT, couldn't they have...?
Think I covered the rest of my feelings above... it really wasn't that I disliked individual things, so much as a general feeling of 'meh'. Maybe I'll like it more on re-watch... we'll see.
Overall? I guess I'd say 3/5... it was a decent enough movie, I just didn't get that excited by it. Maybe that'll change, I dunno. Maybe I just need a break from Harry. ^^
Well, that's it. Going to go eat now, and rest... so tired. Ugh.
I think my main problem is that I just didn't FEEL anything from the movie. Hence, I'm not sure if it's me or the movie. But I just... felt numb through most of it. I'd expected to sob at Sirius's death, but I just kinda sniffed, felt sad, then moved on. I didn't feel the same fear and horror as I did in the book - the book just gets more and more depressing and dark and hopeless, and I didn't really get the same feeling from the movie even though I could tell it was trying to do that. I felt that they played some of the scenes with Umbridge, and with the educational decrees, up for laughs instead of making her as frightening and evil as she is in the books. Imelda Staunton was great, of course, but I didn't really HATE her the same way as I do in the book.
Obviously a great deal was cut out or compressed, which I expected but was still disappointed by. Not so much because they missed out on stuff that was too important, because they generally got in all the major plot points, but because the movie FELT compressed and too jerky, like they were trying to just ram a bunch of scenes together. After awhile I was just thinking "okay, so now that's going to happen... then they'll do that, then that, then they're at the Ministry, then it'll be over. Huh." It's hard to fault the movie for that, I suppose - OotP has a great deal of exposition, and frankly it's just a freaking huge book. It's a difficult book to translate into a movie, and thouigh I think they did a decent job it was hard for me to really enjoy. I try to enjoy the movies on their own right, generally - I loved the 3rd and 4th ones in spite of some glaring omissions/changes. But both of those were also highly enjoyable, fun, entertaining, and just plain well done movies, whereas this one, imo, was not. It wasn't really BAD, per se, but it wasn't fantastic.
And now, lists... stuff I liked:
- Luna - Evanna Lynch did a great job. She was very cute and dreamy, but I liked how they also showed that she's more than what she seems on the outside. I liked her bonding with Harry, though wow did it feel like they were trying to push Harry/Luna! I liked them talking about the Thestrals as outsiders, like themselves, and recognizing that loneliness in each other
- Imelda Staunton did a great job, as I already said. She was so horribly fake-sweet and sugary and PINK, dear god the PINK. I loved her office, loved the kittens in the plates (glad they kept that). I kinda felt like she was played for laughs more than she should have been, but she did a good job of portraying the teeth underneath all that fake fluff. ^^ She was pretty damned nasty, though as I said I still didn't feel quite the same amount of fear and foreboding about her as I do from the books. Maybe that's just me, I dunno...
- Dumbledore's Army - quite liked these scenes, overall. Thought they could have cut down on some of the montage sequences in favour of other scenes they cut, but I did generally like said montage sequences. Filch's attempts to get into the RoR made me laugh, too. ^^
- Fred and George's getaway - oh boys. :) I do love them... the fireworks were great, as was the giant W they spelled out at the end, heh. Enjoyed the WWW scenes in general, too, with them selling their stuff and testing it out on the first years and such.
- Bellatrix - Helena Bonham Carter was fantastic. Totally insane. Heh.
- Jason Isaacs... mm, you could just tell that he was having a blast being all evil and smarmy. :) And sexy. *cough* Ahh, I love that snake cane... too bad Lucius isn't around in the next one.
- Ralph Fiennes was once again excellent... he's perfect for the role. I really liked the shot of him destroying all the glass (I think?) in the Atrium during the final battle - that shot were he's got his arms outstretched and it's all falling down around him and tearing up the big poster of Fudge was great.
- Thestrals looked pretty cool, overall..
- Umbridge inspecting the other profs - esp her inspection of Snape, heh. Sorely missed her inspection of McGonagall, though.
- generally liked the Sirius/Harry scenes. The scene with the tapestry was good. Wish I'd felt sadder over his death... maybe it's just because I knew it was coming, and was just sitting there counting down the minutes until it'd happen. Meh. And wtf with her casting AK on him and him dying before he went through the veil? Meh. Doesn't matter much, I guess...
- Percy, yay! Okay, so hated that there was NO explanation as to his presence, but was happy to see him anyway. And wow, he looked pretty hot with his hair all slicked back. XD
- Tonks was cool, albeit underutilized.
- totally random thing, but I totally cracked up over the goat in the Hog's Head. Aberforth! Heee. XD
Think that's most of it... now onto the bad stuff/ranting. :)
- quite possibly the number one worst thing... Harry writhing on the bloody floor while thinking of how much he loooves his friends and trying to force Voldemort out of his mind. Dear GOD. Could they have over-dramaticized it more? They took a perfectly decent scene in which Harry is possessed by Voldy, thinks about Sirius, and pushes Voldy out of his mind because of his love for Sirius. Okay, I could accept that, it was a good scene which emphasized the importance of Harry's capacity to love and Voldemort's inability to do the same. But why go from that to a long drawn out scene of him flashing back on his friends and seeing their faces and writhing. on. the. floor.? Jesus. Just too over-the-top and cheesy, I thought it could have been done much better. Totally pulled me out of the movie at the point.
- Cho as the traitor - bwuh? I can understand them not wanting to bring in a new character just to betray them, but it seemed rather unfair to Cho... yeesh. Made her out to seem like a worse person than she is.
- lack of McGonagall was very disappointing. I loved her scenes in the book...
- wasn't overly fond of the Ministry scenes at the end... not really sure why. And wtf was with the DEs and the Order <i>flying</i>? It was kinda cool, I guess, but it seemed... odd.
- Grawp. Christ, what was up with that? Why did they feel the need to make him all sweet and cuddly and nice? And in love with Hermione? Oi.
- relative lack of Harry's teenaged angst and shouting and all. Okay, maybe that's a good thing, but.. I kept waiting for him to go into serious capslock rage!
- I know they had to do it, but... pages and PAGES of exposition reduced to 1-2 minute scenes. Ie. at the Dursleys' at the start, and with Dumbledore at the end. They could have fleshed those scenes out a BIT, couldn't they have...?
Think I covered the rest of my feelings above... it really wasn't that I disliked individual things, so much as a general feeling of 'meh'. Maybe I'll like it more on re-watch... we'll see.
Overall? I guess I'd say 3/5... it was a decent enough movie, I just didn't get that excited by it. Maybe that'll change, I dunno. Maybe I just need a break from Harry. ^^
Well, that's it. Going to go eat now, and rest... so tired. Ugh.
