[HPFGU-Movie] Reviews: isn't it odd...

[GulPlum]

At 23:38 03/06/04 , Sophia wrote:

>At the risk of sounding terribly simplistic, how is it that an
>actor's performance can come off so differently to different viewers?

<snip (regretfully)>

Putting aside all the reviews from people who don't know what they're 
talking about (i.e. people for whom a cute face and/or smile is enough to 
be smitten by a performance), judging children's performances is 
exceptionally subjective. For instance, unlike (seemingly) most of the 
cinema-going population, I was never particularly impressed with Haley 
Osment in "The Sixth Sense". I was, on the other hand, very pleasantly 
surprised by his turn in "A.I.", for which he was generally derided. To 
quote you, further along, "go figure". :-) I feel very strongly that any of 
the main actors in "Stand By Me" 18 years ago (and especially both River 
Phoenix and Wil Wheaton) deserved Oscar nominations far more than Osment 
did for The Sixth Sense.

Now, I don't know other people's criteria, but for me (as a pretty crap 
actor), any film performance should be judged on four criteria (and I don't 
make allowances for kids, which a lot of critics do): line delivery, 
movement, being a passive presence in a scene, and emotional "truth".

In case anyone has the wrong idea, I don't actually look at a performance 
analytically in that way - it's when a shortcoming in any of those areas 
doesn't jump out of the screen at me that I consider a role to have been 
well played. As far as the HP movies go, Dan's movement in the first two 
struck me as particularly fake, and as I said elsewhere, he has a problem 
with his line delivery in that he strives to enunciate every single word 
perfectly which gives the impression that the words are studied rather than 
spontaneous. In this respect, Emma in PoA was absolutely magnificent, 
delivering her lines in an absolutely naturalistic fashion.

Dan says that he looked forward to working with Oldman, who's a bit of an 
idol - well, he could certainly learn something about line delivery from 
him! :-)

The only moment in PoA which I found utterly cringeworthy - and I'm 
absolutely certain that some people will disagree with me - are the first 
shots of Harry's "breakdown" after the Three Broomsticks revelations (I'll 
keep this a little vague to keep it spoiler-free). What should have been 
one of the emotional cores of Harry's journey fell flat because poor Dan, 
while he did the "angry" bit very well a moment later, couldn't just sit 
there and do "upset". As soon as he had words to say (incidentally, one of 
the very few moments in the movie when we have an extreme close-up of a 
speaking character's face - bloody brilliant!), he was OK. But sitting 
there and sobbing simply didn't cut it for me. On first viewing, I thought 
I was cringing from sympathy (no 13 year-old boy wants to be seen sobbing), 
but on the second viewing, I knew that it was the performance of the 
sobbing rather than the sobbing itself. :-)

>Also,where most positive reviews proclaim PoA far superior to PS and
>CoS, I was really surprised to find house-hold name movie critic
>Roger Ebert less enthusiastic about this one whereas he apparently
>raised the first two films to the skies...Go figure. I suppose
>ultimately we're all just judging for ourselves...

I didn't read any reviews until today (I generally avoid reading reviews of 
"big" movies until I've seen them) very largely because I knew that I'd be 
participating in various threads just like this one, and wanted whatever 
comments I've had to make be my own rather than influenced by others. I've 
spent a large part of this evening trawling through various professional 
reviews. I'm happy to note that of 66 reviews catalogued on 
rottentomatoes.com, 58 are positive. I've only read a handful of them (and 
several of the negative ones are unavailable) but those who actively 
dislike the movie appear not to have understood it (the patronising 
attitude of Rex Reed in the New York Observer put me off doing more than 
skimming through it, and although  he calls it the "silliest" HP adventure 
in the opening paragraph, he never actually says what was so silly about it).

It's been a *long* time since I've read any of Ebert's, but apart from his 
conclusion, I must say that he was pretty positive about PoA (***1/2 is by 
no means "poor" by his standards).  (BTW 
http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/cst-ftr-potter03f.html for those who 
want to see it).

Although his conclusions in one respect agree with mine (the plot leaves 
too many things unexplained), in another we disagree entirely, namely his 
implication that "joyously leaping through a clockwork plot" should be a 
positive attribute! The fact that this film is not a simple run-though of a 
simple plot is very much to its credit, and I really can't see why he 
should want to hold this against it.

He's clearly (to me, at least) not read the books, and like many reviewers, 
he wants - and expects! - the kids to keep their innocence. As we know, 
part of the appeal for a lot of us here is precisely that the kids 
gradually *do* lose it! I suspect that Ebert's in for a major shock when he 
sees GoF (regardless of how faithful it is to the tone of the book).

I therefore think that the main reason that Ebert prefers the first two 
movies is that the kids are still very much kids in them and perhaps he 
prefers his kids' movies that way? (As implied above, I've not read enough 
Ebert to know his attitude on this subject; he's  better known to me, and 
on this side of the Pond generally, as a cinephile and "film expert" rather 
than as a critic.)

Furthermore, and I may be completely wrong on this, but the general view I 
get of American mass media is that loss of innocence is generally limited 
to loss of *sexual* innocence. The fact that this series, even 5/7 through 
as it currently is with the books, has only gone as far as one off-page 
fairly innocent kiss (and no further) for the main character, is being much 
less "sexual" than the US market would expect. One aspect of this 
expectation is the preponderance of the media (and fans'!) interest in 
shipping (although to be fair, this is fairly heavy in the UK media as 
well). (I repeat, this is a perception I have, and it's probably not 
entirely correct.)

So, after that very long-winded trip around the neighbourhood, I suppose I 
can understand those critics who might prefer the first two movies, as they 
*are* simplistic kids' movies and leave very little to the imagination and 
even less for the viewer to put together in their own head. If one goes 
into PoA with that expectation, one is going to be disappointed. 
Regrettably, though, on the other hand, the complex multi-threaded plot of 
the book has been simplified just a little too much to be a proper 
"grown-up" movie, which is perhaps a criticism in its own right.

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, who is surprised to find that he's spent over 3 hours 
composing the above!