Go, Harry!

[Jeremy Robinson]

There's a reluctant pride in the last blockbusters of 2002-'Potter', Bond and
'Rings'-originating from British authors and British literature (Rowling,
Fleming and Tolkien). True, it's all American money in 'Harry Potter 2',
'James Bond 20' and 'Lord of the Rings 2'-no one else can capitalize USD 100
million-plus movies (with one US media giant-AOL Time Warner-raking in the
profits from the two wizard flicks). And there's massive American input on the
production teams, and the directors are from the US or South Pacific
(Columbus, Tamahori, Jackson). But there's still the extraordinary pleasure in
seeing a Hollywood blockbuster opening on, of all places, a British suburban
housing estate ('Potter'). (There's also a delight, for a British audience, of
seeing places like Oxford, or Durham or Gloucester Cathedrals in so many
scenes-the corridors, the outdoor courtyard at Gloucester. Which is apt, too,
because the areas of S. Gloucestershire and N.E. Bristol are the Rowling
heartland). 
'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' is a total pleasure. Every cent that
Warners/ Heyday Films/ 1492 Pictures/ Duncan Henderson Prods spent (of the USD
140 million+) has been worth it. Thankfully, the formula that made the first
film so wonderful has been kept intact, with a few refinements, but no major
alterations to structure. Much of the same production team returns to work on
the second film. Columbus does a brilliant job (and makes it look so easy);
the casting is mainly spot-on (pity Branagh was in it, though); the production
design is fabulously detailed; the camerawork is luscious (and courageously
very low contrast at times); the visual effects are stunning, with ILM proving
itself again as the king amongst fx houses (but the other vendors  turned in
equally accomplished work). 
As with the first film, 'Harry Potter 2' is far superior to the book. The
books are amusing, entertaining, and curiously addictive: Rowling's mix of
fantasy and British public school fiction, and the steals from myriad sources
(Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, etc), is good fun, but doesn't
approach the heights of other children's literature. Rowling's first two
'Potter' books have been surpassed by the visualizations of Warners'
production team (on the first film, Stuart Craig, John Seale, Michael Lamont,
and fx wizs Robert Legato, John Richardson and Nick Davis). Rowling may come
up with some good ideas on her own, but in the films her vision's supplanted
by an enormous team of the best people in the film business. 
The 'Harry Potter' films are very unusual amongst contemporary  film adaptions
is being so 'faithful' to the source material. No author could complain,
having signed away the film rights, to such lovingly crafted literary
adaptions (no such luck for professor Tolkien, though, whose latest
incarnations  of his work from New Line Cinema are a long way from
'faithful'). 
Of course, fans might've wanted to see every last scene in the 'Harry Potter
2' book make it into the film. But, although the pace of the film was frantic
(the early scenes were rushed, for instance), 'Harry Potter 2' still had time
to stop and look around at key points. There's some lovely detail in there:
Dobby, for example, in an early scene in Harry's bedroom, picks up a piece of
Harry's clothing and flings it away in disgust. 
'Harry Potter 2' was basically the same film as the first one. Same but
slightly different. If you have a product that had made 900 million bucks and
more (from theatrical release alone, not counting DVD, home video, TV sales,
licensing, merchandizing, etc), you wouldn't change it too much. It worked
like a dream first time round, so keep it pretty much the same: same beginning
in British suburbia, same vile Dursleys, same welcoming Weasleys, same (but
slightly different) Diagon Alley scenes, same train station, same (but
slightly different) journey with Ron and Harry, same wacky lessons in
wizardry, same dinner scenes in the hall, same invisibility cloak trip to
Hagrid's hut, same ghosts, same central trio of young privileged school kids,
same mystery plot, same (but slightly different) quidditch match, same house
rivalries, same but slightly different nighttime trek in the forest and
encounter with monsters, same scenes with Hagrid in the hut, same lair for
Voldemort underneath Hogwarts, same but slightly different monsters, same
face-off with Voldemort (better monster this time), same reward scene with
Dumbledore, same hospital scenes, same reunion scenes, etc. 
It's odd that critics have complained that 'Harry Potter 2' isn't different
enough from the first instalment. That's like moaning to Ford or General
Motors that their latest car still has four wheels, four seats and a
windscreen, and couldn't they make summat different this time? *Of course*
sequels replay the original film very closely: that's the whole point! You
don't mess about with USD 900m theatrical gross. 
On some levels, the 'Harry Potter' films may be inferior to other contemporary
blockbusters-the acting of the three leads is still lamentable; the dialogue
is sometimes clunky; the signposting is in day-glo. And, yes, the ideology of
the 'Potter' films is relentlessly classist, elitist, conservative,
reactionary-Thatcherism and Reaganism made concrete. But, hell, that applies
to virtually any blockbuster movie made since 'Jaws' and 'Star Wars'. 
Despite all the dramatic shortcomings of the 'Harry Potter' films (as scripts,
as politics), there's no denying that there's something curiously fascinating
about them. It's a combination of the world they depict-British public school,
strictly hierarchical and ruthlessly authoritarian, hopelessly, oppressively
classist and elitist, yet somehow completely compelling. It's the fantasy-fey,
wistful, but also pretty run-of-the-mill (and it's, importantly, the balance
between 'reality' or everydayness and fantasy). And it's the incredible,
confident flair with which Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is
realized on screen. 
Yeah, and it's the nostalgia for a vanished age (which never existed in the
first place) of Enid Blyton/ Agatha Christie mystery plots, where pupils
misbehave after hours (but only to solve mysteries, never to drink, do drugs
or have sex), where they always ultimately defer to authority (they call
teachers 'sir'), never swear (apart from 'bloody'), don't wear designer gear
or labels, or skateboard, or smoke, or listen to music, or watch TV, or play
computer games, or do any of the things real kids do (there's not a single
poster of Britney Spears or Sum 41 or the like in Harry's bedroom). 
You sit in the theatre thinking, the politics of 'Harry Potter' (or 'Lord of
the Rings', or 'James Bond') is repulsive. But you've got to love a film in
which the first fantasy element introduced in the story is a little elf
dressed in a dirty pillow-case bouncing on the hero's bed. And, hey, 'Harry
Potter 2' flirts with a minor sub-plot about ethnicity and heredity (the
'mud-blood' theme-which, as it centres on Hermione, also involves misogynism). 

'The Two Towers'. 
By contrast, Tolkien (or the ghost of the professor) has everything to
complain about. 
The 'Lord of the Rings' films have wound up being everything the filmmakers
intended to avoid: camp, heavy metal macho versions of mediaeval fantasy.
Nothing wrong with that, of course: some of the most enjoyable movies are
camp, heavy metal macho versions of mediaeval fantasy. 
But if you're adapting Tolkien, you expect something a little more. Making it
an over-the-top, expensive remake of 'Sinbad' isn't enough. A costlier version
of TV's 'Hercules' or 'Xena'-bigger stars, longer running time-is not enough. 
The New Line Cinema films have lots going for them: pretty visualizations by
Lee and Howe (therein lie the claims of 'authenticity'), an idiosyncratic
score by Shore (but John Williams beats him there), and one or two strong
performances (the magnificent Chris Lee as Saruman). 
But the New Line Cinema versions of Tolkien are hampered by so many defects: 
- calamitous casting choices (Elijah Wood and Sean Astin as Frodo and Sam-I
don't think so! Cate friggin' Blanchett; Hugo Weaving, etc); 
- massive and wide-ranging alterations and cuts from the source material, plus
too many additions; 
- some under-developed and awkward design (too much plastic fantasy a la
'Hercules' and 'Xena'); 
- relentless emphasis on macho violence and action scenes, which are more
Warhammer and heavy rock than Tolkien. 

During the first few minutes of the prologue of 'Fellowship' in the theatre
last December, you thought, wow, this is gonna be good. By the end, after that
interminable fight beside the Anduin between the Company and the orcs and
Aragorn lopping off Lurtz's head you thought, this is good fun, but it's not
Tolkien. It's Arny's 'Conan' meets 'The Wind in the Willows' by way of 'The
Matrix', but it's not Tolkien (and not as good as any of those). 

Where the 'Harry Potter' films scored so well in being 'faithful' to the
source material (you wouldn't want professional grump J.K. Rowling dogging
your subsequent career with lawsuits), the 'Lord of the Rings' adaptions
stumble. In staying faithful to their English fantasy sources, Mr 'Home Alone'
(Columbus) has fared better than Mr 'Braindead' (Jackson). With the New Line
Cinema adaptions, you'll get three films which have some pacey action
sequences, loadsa monsters and fx, stunts galore, but with only occasional
moments illustrating the melancholy, the breadth and the multi-layered
elements of Tolkien's book. Something of the reverse would be a more accurate
and convincing adaption of Tolkien, though. 

Advance rumours that the Helm's Deep battle lasts for 45 minutes 'bodes ill'
(as Gimli might put it). It shows how Osbourne, Jackson, Walsh, Boyens et al
have unbalanced their adaption of Tolkien in favour of endless battles. In my
copy of 'The Two Towers', the "Helm's Deep" chapter is 21 pages long-out of
432 pages in the book. In other words, 5 percent; in the film, if rumours're
true at 45 mins, it's expanded to 30 percent. That unbalances Tolkien's
fiction way too much. 
Yes, 'Lord of the Rings' is about a war ('War of the Ring', one of Tolkien's
alternative titles, is a more accurate title for the whole book). But
Tolkien's depiction of war at the end of the Third Age of Middle-earth doesn't
mean one CG action sequence after another. 

In 'The Two Towers' I'm hoping for all the things that made the first film so memorable:

ageing actors in dodgy camp leather costumes;
masses of hairy fright wigs and beards (Frodo, Gandalf, Gimli); 
actors practising their scowls, grimaces and looks of awe; 
American actors struggling with Gloucestershire accents (Astin's 'Mr Frodo!');
orcs like goggle-eyed Marty Feldmans out of 'Young Frankenstein' ('yes,
master?'), or the Devil's idiotic lackeys in 'Time Bandits' (if only the orcs
were as good as Feldman); 
religious mumbo-jumbo;
ponderously s---l---o---w line readings (hopefully, Blanchett-a disastrous
Galadriel-won't appear in 'The Two Towers'); 
pantomime villains; 
endless macho action; 
and pointless and embarrassing additions to Tolkien.