My PoA Review - SPOILERS

[nicholas at adelanta.co.uk]

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E

PoA is my favourite of the books so far, so my expectations were high; but
I was optimistic because of the appointment of Cuaron. A bit of a mixed
reaction; I'm adding my comments to GulPlum's post (nice to see you back,
btw), as he is the one with whom I most closely agree. When all I can add
to his post is the dreaded 'me too', I have snipped.

>Talking of that clockface, the idea of "time" is omnipresent throughout
>this film. From clocks and watches, and people looking at them, to a
>persistent chiming of the hours, it's ladled on perhaps just a little *too*
>thickly, but it does have the effect of constantly taking up the tension,
>notch by notch.

I liked it. I even heard a ticking clock throughout one sequence (forgotten
which).

>
>Another persistent presence throughout the film is the Whomping Willow.
>Slightly re-imagined since CoS (and all CGI as far as I could tell apart
>from the roots), its appearance and behaviour better meet my expectations;
>it's at last more "whompy" rather than simply bashing away and looks more
>willowy, for starters!

I *really* liked this. A grumpy tree with attitude; nicely interpreted.
Watch especially what happens when a bird gets close...

(snip)

>The acting, overall, was significantly superior to the first two films.
>Radcliffe's motor acting has improved immeasurably, but his line delivery
>and emotional "centre" still requires some work.

Agreed. I wanted a more extreme emotion when he blew up Aunt Marge, and can
only attribute this to Cuaron, as DR is, I think, perfectly capable of a
furious stare...we saw it several times in PS and CoS.

Girl-power Hermione was, I felt, somewhat overdone. As has already been
pointed out, the girl was going to pieces throughout the book because of
all the extra classes, but it just wasn't in evidence in the movie. The
famous punch was a little extreme, though it is canon. Why did Cuaron wimp
out on the most violent thing that she did in the book? When Snape is
knocked out in the Shrieking Shack, it's Harry who does it in the movie,
though in the book it's Harry, Ron and Hermione together. (I noticed, btw,
that 'Expelliarmus' now does what it is supposed to do, unlike in
CoS...though Harry's Expelliarmus knocks out Snape altogether, when all of
the others simply disarm)

(snip some comments about Lupin)
>I'd love to hear Cuaron's rationale for
>dressing him like a 1945 demobbed junior officer (complete with pencil
>moustache and brogues) and giving him a penchant for listing to 1940s (?)
>records on a wind-up gramophone - including during the Boggart class! Weird!

I *really* liked the idea of the Boggart class set to Lupin's own music;
but that whole scene wasn't snappy enough for me. After the intial
explanation, there should have been a very fast turnover of students facing
the Boggart, as in the book, with the Boggart rapidly changing shape as
each student came forward. Instead, it was very jolting, with the Boggart
hanging around waiting for each student to decide what he/she thought of as
the most scary form it could take. And why was Harry allowed to confront
it? It took the form of a Dementor, of course, and in the later explanation
scene, Lupin said that he hadn't let Harry confront it (huh?) because he
thought that Voldemort would emerge....so did Lupin not notice that it was
a Dementor, not Voldemort? Just didn't add up. The final bit, however, was
brilliant; Lupin's moonBoggart was Riddikulused into a balloon which farted
its way across the room; very funny. But then we were left with a backwards
image of Harry looking at the cupboard...  his scar was on the wrong side
of his forehead (I had heard that that cropped up somewhere, but never
thought I would notice it in the first showing). It was extremely obvious.
(mental note to check  next time whether we were supposed to be seeing
Harry's reflected image in the door of the cupboard).

>Other than that, though, there is a significant amount of join-the-dots to
>be done while watching this movie. Those who've read the book won't have
>any trouble, of course, but for those depending exclusively on the movie to
>explain what's going on (and why), there are just a few too many holes.

Hear hear. And it's seriously frustrating.

>At no point is any connection made between the authors of the map (Messrs
>M,W,P&P) and Sirius, James, Lupin and Pettigrew. This would not have been
>difficult (personally, I'd have inserted it at the end when Harry gets the
>map back - this obviates the need for any lengthy explanations about what
>else the foursome may have got up to).

Exactly. This was the thing that bothered me most. When Snape caught Harry
with the map and Lupin confiscated it, it was extremely clear that Snape
didn't know how to work it but Lupin did. All that it would have taken was
a question from Harry to Lupin; 'how is it that you know how the Map
works?' to make things clearer. An additional minute (?) of screen time.

One nice bit, though, and it answers Tim's question; Lupin keeps the Map
because, as he says, as DADA teacher, items possibly full of dark magic are
really his area of expertise.

I liked the way they created the Map as a multi-layered, self-folding
paper. I have wondered how it was going to be done, since you can write
stuff like that without worrying too much about the visuals, but how do you
show a map which apparently portrays all floors of a multi-storey castle?
Cleverly done.

(snip)
>It's never made clear that MWPP & Snape were class contemporaries.
(snip)

Towards the end, Harry talks about Sirius and Lupin being his dad's best
friends, but there's no way of knowing how he knew that.

>
>Although Sirius mentions Lupin's having forgotten to take his "potion",
>it's not given a name, nor is it stated that Snape had any hand in
>preparing it

One very brief mention of the potion, which came out of nowhere. And it
would have been so easy to have had Lupin drinking the potion during one or
preferably all of the scenes that he had, with a couple of passing
comments.

>Once the stag appears, therefore, there is no reason to make a
>connection between it and James.

In the book, the connection was made plain *after* Harry's successful
Patronus, which created a nice 'oh yeah' moment. There should have been a
similar one in the movie.

And speaking of Patronuses; in the movie lesson with Lupin, Harry made two
attempts, and the second one was successful. It was made to look way too
easy, even with the comments about advanced magic. The point in the book
was that, until he finally produced the successful Patronus to protect
himself and Sirius and Hermione, he had never done it before.

So on balance, a curate's egg of a movie. I will certainly see it again,
probably many times before it disappears from the cinemas; but I won't
brave the crowds again till half-term week is over.

Final point; I did like the end titles this time around. No extra scenelet
a la CoS, but a nice little touch at the very end.

Cheers,
Nicholas

Phoned the cinema today to get showtimes for the weekend. Calm, unemotional
voice giving all timings, followed by a panicky 'would customers PLEASE
note that ALL seats for today, June 1st, are SOLD OUT!!!'
They have ten performances today, and that's not the largest multiplex in
the area...