PoA Review

[TJ Mallon]

Spoiler Space
 
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I went to a midnight showing this morning.  Theater was packed with mostly
teenagers and their parents.  Quite a few people were dressed up in wizards
hats and/or Hogwarts robes.  One kid, whom everyone kept calling "Harry"
when he walked by, was completely dressed up in the school uniform,
including sweater, house tie, robe and Harry's glasses.  Despite all the
noise before the movie started, everyone did settle down and watched the
movie (I've been in movies where noise from the audience has distracted from
the movie - try watching Return Of The Jedi back in 1983 in a theater full
of Army basic trainees who would not shut up)
 
Since it was mostly an older audience, most of them caught the symbolism of
the very first scene of Harry "playing" under the covers with his wand and
that brought a chuckle to many.  As well as the hug between Sirius and Lupin
the shack and Snape's comment about an old married couple.
 
I don't know about everyone else, but watching on a regular movie screen, I
got dizzy watching the Knight Bus sequence (I can only imagine how the
person who said they watched it in IMAX felt).  Actually, that was perfect
because that's the impression I felt I should get from the description in
the book.
 
Something felt off about Arthur telling Harry about Sirius - someone
mentioned the actor playing Arthur seeming off in his delivery.  I'm not
quite sure if that's it, but the scene just didn't feel right to me.
 
I don't remember it raining in the book during the train ride (I could only
remember it raining at Hogwarts when they arrive in GoF and I haven't
consulted PoA book yet - too busy catching up on the sleep I missed last
night), but I suppose it was an artistic choice to highlight the gloomy
nature of this movie.
 
Michael Gambon as Dumbledore - I know most of the reviews in
newspapers/magazines have been praising him, but his characterization just
does not grab me the way Richard Harris' did.  He didn't seem as warm and
endearing as RH.  And what was with the beard in a ponytail thing?  I don't
remember Dumbledore doing that in the books and I thought it just looked
funny.  It was harder to focus on the character when I was shaking my head
over his appearance.
 
David Thewlis was a fine addition as Lupin, except I thought his mustache
looked funny.  I thought there was something more than friendship there - at
least on his side - when he was talking about Lily.  I didn't like how it
was never really made clear how close Lupin was to James.  
 
Poor Maggie Smith.  She had a "blink and you'll miss her" role in this
movie.  Heck, Alan Rickman had more to do in the last movie and I thought he
had been shortchanged there.  McGonagall fared even worse than that this
time.
 
Poor Alan, as well.  I hope for his sake he hasn't read the book and
realizes how much meaty material he missed out on in this movie (PoA and
OotP probably provide the most Snape for the money in the books and after
this movie, I shutter to think how much they will cut in the OotP movie re:
his character) - I don't want Alan to decide he's not getting enough to do
since he's one of my favorite actors and the one about whose casting I was
most enthusiastic before the first movie.  Snape has such a pivotal role in
the whole ending and he comes off as almost an afterthought.  From watching
to movie, I'm not sure what was the purpose of seeing him the Shrieking
Shack to begin with.  He had nothing to do but get knocked out and step out
of character to overtly protect the kids.  He was excellent in the DADA
class (that scene and the deleted scene of the potions class from PS/SS come
closest in the movies to capturing Snape's caustic snark from the books) and
everyone was laughing loud and long at the boggart scene.  Anyone else
notice how long Alan had to stand there in that dress?  For someone who in
the books always tried to be nice to Snape no matter what, Lupin almost
purposely in the movie seems to leave Boggart Snape in his form longer than
necessary.  I do wish we could have seen the potions class with the
Shrinking Solution to get an idea of Neville's fear of Snape - nothing in
any of the movies has suggested the level of fear of Snape that Neville
showed when simply saying his name to Lupin - it seemed like it came out of
left field, since we didn't get an idea of it in the previous movies either.
Surely it wouldn't have added too much extra time to the movie.
 
Also, Lupin's statement that he thought the boggart would turn into
Voldemort did not make sense since Harry started to face it and the boggart
quite obviously turned into a dementor.
 
Most of the Weasleys - Molly, Percy, Ginny and the twins - all have blink
and you'll miss them roles as well (actually, Ginny did in the book as well,
so that's probably not unexpect as the others).  We did get one "I'm the
Head Boy" line from Percy, but without his strutting pomposity, the
significance is lost.  The twins only seemed to exist in this movie to give
Harry the Marauders' Map.  However, I don't recall in the books them being
aware that Harry even has an Invisibility Cloak - can't you imagine them
trying to borrow it all the time if they did?  Plus, with them knowing Harry
has the cloak, their motivation for giving him the map (that they felt bad
because he couldn't get into Hogsmeade) is lost.
 
I kept waiting for one of the twins to say that Oliver was trying to drown
himself in the shower during the hospital scene after the Quidditch match.
Gone and apparently forgotten.  *Shakes head*  And I thought the telling of
what happened to Harry's broom fell flat.  They brought out the pieces of
the broom too soon, which took away the feeling that Ron and Hermione were
afraid to break his heart by telling him what happened to his believed
broom.  Also, I didn't like the look of the Firebolt at the end.  Compared
to it, the Nimbus looked like a work of art.  I thought the Firebolt was
ugly and I was expecting that it would be sleek and beautiful from the
description in the book.
 
Emma Thompson as Sybil provided much-needed comic relief in this darker
movie, but her prophecy scene just seemed stuck in there without
explanation.  Without reading to the book, would everyone really have
understood the connection between her prophecy and Peter?  The shortchanging
of the whole Shrieking Shack scene doesn't help either, as we don't really
get a clear idea of what Peter really did and how closely tied to Voldemort
he is.  Plus, the lack of explanation of her second accurate prophecy
doesn't allow for foreshading of the revelation of the content of the first
prophecy in OotP.  How many people spent years between PoA and OotP
speculating as to the content of her first prophecy?  Shouldn't they be
catering to all movie goers and not just those who have read the books.
Rather poor of them to just assume everyone has read the books.  My mother
hasn't, so these nuances that I point at as missing she doesn't even realize
they're not there, so I don't think she's getting the full experience.
 
Hermione was a little too obvious letting her time turner hang out in
various scenes.  This is not an unknown wizarding device, so I would think
there would be at least a few students (like Draco) who would recognize what
she had if they saw it.  And I didn't get the sense that she was falling
apart under the strain of all the courses she was talking.  In the book,
both her striking Draco and leaving Trelawney's class came off as much about
her finally snapping under the strain as about her feelings about Draco and
Sybil's class.  Here, they both seemed to come a little bit out of left
field.  Her characterization was the biggest departure in the movie from the
book but for one thing - the Shrieking Shack scene.
 
*Sigh* The Shrieking Shack scene.  The climax of the story and it fell so
flat.  Again, would it have added too much extra time to show the following
-
1) How Sirius knew Peter was alive.  We saw the photo of the Weasleys from
the Daily Prophet earlier in the movie, so it would have only taken two
extra lines to explain.  "How did you know?"  "I saw his picture with that
family in the Daily Prophet"
2) The who and why of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs and the Marauders'
Map.  If I hadn't read the book many times, I would not have understood the
significance of the stag Patronus.  Plus, it isn't explained earlier in the
movie how Lupin knew 1) that it was a map and 2) how to work it.  I'm
curious to talk to my mother, who loves the movies but I previously said has
never read the books, and see if she understood any of the subtext after
seeing this movie.   Maybe I ought to buy her a copy of PoA so she can see
what she's missing.
3) Connected with #2 above, Snape got really short shrift in this scene.
Okay, we get the idea that he strongly dislikes Lupin (from the scenes of
Snape finding Harry with the map - listening between the lines, I got the
impression he knew Lupin's connection to the map, even without the
"manufacturers" line - and his comments to Dumbledore after Sirius got into
the castle) and we got that he *hates* Sirius from his few lines in the
shack, but WHY?  I guess everyone behind the scenes figured that with
Dumbledore telling Harry how James saved Snape's life not being in the PS/SS
movie, they could skip in this movie why it had been necessary for James to
do so by ignoring the prank.  And although it is clear that Lupin, Sirius
and James were friends with Peter as a kind of tagalong, we're never given
the idea that all five characters are so closely tied together from being in
the same year at school to the prank.  And if we're correct about Snape
being the one who warned Dumbledore that the Potters were in danger .... I
know a lot of people who have read the books have tried to draw parallels
between MWPP, Lily, Snape and the present generation - from watching the
movies, you'd never guess there might be a parallel to be drawn.
4) It's never explained how Sirius escaped from Azkaban and how he didn't go
insane.  Again, a few lines could have added so much explanation.
5) Too much, too soon.  I didn't like how Harry saw Peter Pettigrew on the
map.  Would it really have hurt to have Snape catch him coming back from
Hogsmeade like in the book and thus finding the map, rather than catching
Harry in the hall at night looking for the supposedly dead Peter?  One of
the reasons PoA is my favorite book is because it keeps the suspense going
right up until Lupin says that Scabbers is Peter in the Shrieking Shack
(it's also at the end of a chapter in the book, so it's a nice little
cliffhanger going into the next chapter).  I remember thinking "Holy s**t!!*
the first time I read the book - that whole twist is why PoA is still my
favorite book of the series.  I had not seen that coming and until that
point, had never even suspected Sirius might be innocent (although when I
went back, I could see the subtle clues throughout).  However, the surprise
is taken away in the movie.  Oh, Harry saw a dead person on the map.  Since
this comes after the Hogsmeade visit where Harry overheard the story of
Peter's death, it's painfully obvious at this point that Sirius is innocent
of at least one of the crimes he supposedly committed and perhaps more.
YAWN.  That little revelation kills much of the suspense of the first
run-through of the Shrieking Shack scene and Harry ends up coming off as a
bit of a dunce for not realizing that perhaps it was Peter that Sirius was
after, not him.  Also, with Harry being the one who saw Peter on the map and
not Lupin, we lose the explanation of why Lupin ended up in the shack, as
well as the explanation of how Snape ends up there.  Remember, the shack
does not show up on the map, so he couldn't have seen Sirius on the map.  It
would have worked better if they'd gone with the book, had Snape catch Harry
coming from Hogsmeade then calling Lupin, then have Lupin see Peter on the
map heading for the Whomping Willow and then Snape following with the
Wolfsbane potion after seeing Lupin on the map.
6) Forgive me for the "let's abuse Snape" attitude, but I would have loved
to see the mobilicorpus scene.  I'm sure, given the mood of the audience in
the theater, that would have brought a big laugh, not to mention lending
credence to the emnity between Sirius and Snape.
7) What was the point of the fight between Moony and Padfoot and Snape
having to protect the Trio?  I didn't think it added anything to the story
(didn't Lupin just run off in the book?) and his standing in front of the
Trio was a bit overt for Snape, who is supposed to be a spy.  Spy=covert.
DUH!  It's a wonder Snape hasn't gotten himself killed in the movie universe
for being such a lousy spy.  And it's never explained how everyone got
rounded up and ended up in the infirmary - especially since Harry and Sirius
were separated from Snape, Ron and Hermione in the movie (they were all
together by the lake in the book).  What did Snape do, take Ron and Hermione
to the infirmary then head out looking for Harry and Sirius (or worse, send
Fudge and MacNair out after them)?  
8) Since Fudge was (presumably, since it's not really made clear in the
movie) still around, it didn't make sense for that long goodbye between
Harry and Sirius since Sirius really needed to get out of there as soon as
possible with Buckbeak.  They were supposed to be trying to escape, not get
caught again.
9) I would have loved to have seen Alan Rickman play Snape's blow-up when he
realizes that Sirius escaped again.
10) On further reflection, I didn't like Harry getting the Firebolt at the
end instead of at Christmas (when I first heard about it, I didn't think it
was that big a deal).  That's part of the overall mystery leading up to the
fact that Sirius is in fact innocent and we miss all that, not to mention
that it would have provided a hidden clue that Sirius really did care about
Harry and did not want to hurt him.  Plus, then we could have gotten a brief
scene on the train at the end with Sirius explaining about the Firebolt and
Ron getting Pigwidgeon since it was Sirius' "fault he no longer has a rat".
 
>From a critical standpoint, I would say this was a better movie than the
first two.  However, for me personally, since PoA is my favorite book, I
missed a lot of the things that makes it my favorite book.  I would have
rather had a movie which was just as long as the first two which explained
some of the plot holes rather than seeing how much truly important stuff got
left hanging.
 
Tracy
 
 
 
 


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