CoS Review (too long)

[serenadust]

I have to admit that I was concerned about this movie before I saw 
it.  The trailers all looked great and the advance word seemed very 
good, but The Washington Post is my local daily paper and I have 
huge respect for Steven Hunter and his reviews.  He's one of the few 
critics whose reviews I read (even if I have no interest in the film 
in question) just because they are so well written and his opinions 
usually very astute.  So you can imagine my distress when I eagerly 
dove into the paper on Thursday morning to read his very negative 
("big, dull, and empty???)impressions.

That said, it was a great relief to find that when I finally saw the 
movie, I couldn't agree with Hunter this time.  I really (along with 
just about everyone else) thought that it was mostly wonderful and a 
big improvement over PS/SS.  However, Hunter still made some very 
good points that great fans of the books are mostly willing to 
overlook because we know and love the books so well that we can fill 
in what is missing without really noticing that the presentation of 
the story on film is greatly lacking in several areas.  I am very 
glad to have a new director for PoA, but I only wish there was going 
to be a new screenwriter.  I know that Mr. Kloves won JKR's approval 
before the first movie, but I wonder what her real impression is of 
the liberties he has taken with her carefully built story.  I really 
don't think he really gets the complexity of all the characters.  

Fortunately, the movies have been cast just about perfectly IMO.  
Actors like Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Kenneth Branagh, etc really 
seem to have understood what their characters are really about and 
within the limits of the script (and direction), really manage to 
convey much of the depth that would otherwise go missing. Jason 
Issacs was nothing short of brilliant as Malfoy Sr. and I just wish 
he was going to be in PoA, because I don't want to have to wait for 
GoF to see him again.  His portrayal actually added to the rather two
dimensional Lucius in the books so far.

I also loved Daniel Radcliffe's Harry.  I was a bit dissappointed in 
the first movie because Harry seemed rather wan and spiritless 
through most of it.  I knew that Radcliffe was a good actor having 
seen his very impressive performance in David Copperfield (when he 
was at least a year or two younger), so I wondered why his 
performance in PS/SS seemed so limp.  In CoS, though he is really 
the Harry I love.  His dialogue with Tom Riddle was really excellent 
and he completely held his own all through the movie.  I suppose I 
should give some credit to Columbus for correcting this problem, but 
I'm inclined to give most of it to Daniel.

Kenneth Branagh was really brilliant as Lockhart, who just irritated 
me in the books.  He had such fun with the part, that I found that I 
didn't mind Gilderoy's screen-time nearly as much as his page-time.
Is it just me, or was Hermione's massive crush on Lockhart barely 
noticable?  Except for the dreamy look in the first DADA class, it 
was imperceptable and if I hadn't read the books, I'd have missed it.

Unlike some earlier posters, I thought that Alan Rickman was even 
better in this movie than the first.  His Snape is so deep and full 
of subtlety, and he showed this to much greater effect this time 
IMO.  It seemed to me that when he was confronting Ron and Harry 
about the flying car, he actually looked as if he was deeply 
distressed about more than the rule-breaking.  Maybe I'm reading 
more into this than Rickman meant to convey, but I suspect that 
whatever JKR told him about Snape's backstory was being put to good 
use there.  I was a bit surprised by his rough treatment of Draco 
during the duel.  I can't recall anywhere in the books where he 
behaves this way toward Malfoy, so I didn't know what to make of it.

I absolutely LOATHED what Kloves and Columbus did to Ron's 
character.  I'm the first to admit that I am a huge fan of Ron's and 
all the Weasleys, but there was absolutely no excuse for reducing 
him to a cowardly clown.  They also built Hermione up at 
Ron's expense, and threw the dynamics of the trio totally off-
balance.  There is absolutely no logical reason for Hermione to give 
the mudblood explaination and get all teary in Hagrid's cabin.  She 
is *not* the expert on the wizarding world and it's completely 
implausable that she would have picked up the term "mudblood" from 
any of her textbooks, since the term is never used in polite company 
by decent wizards.  The bit where she freezes *all* the pixies in 
midair and EXPLODES the bludger attacking Harry also were wrong, 
wrong, wrong.  At this rate, it will be Hermione whose leg is broken 
in PoA, and who stands up to Sirius Black while Ron cowers, 
whimpering in the corner! Hermione is a great character in the books 
and it actually does a disservice to her to make her into the all- 
knowing, all-powerful Wonderwoman. What is up with Kloves?  He 
really needs 
to re-read the books, and I really hope that JKR gets involved with 
the movies again so that she can correct this.

Other than the lame and rather pointless final scene with the hug, 
and the overdone welcome for Hagrid (who, sadly really must be toast 
in book 5), I really enjoyed the rest of the movie and hope that the 
current actors (especially the trio) stay with the rest of the 
series.  I just want Steve Kloves to move on and hand the 
screenwriting duties on to someone who can adapt the books without 
misinterpreting the characters, and who has a better ear for how 
British people speak.  Is that asking too much?

Jo Serenadust, who also thought that Harris was a lovely Dumbledore 
this time, and who will miss him in the future films