POA - Movie Review - Does Contain Spoilers

[junediamanti]

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What follows is a fairly extensive review that gives a good deal 
away.  Naturally the plot is already well known, but for those who 
want the film to be a complete surprise, avert thine tender eyes...

You have been warned.


Movie finished about 2 hours ago, now post lunch and after allowing
my impressions to have settled down somewhat, here they are.

In the spirit of fairness lets say what I like about the movie
first, then what I dislike.

Then after that, my spirit of total prejudice will kick in and I
will be more specific.

I went in with a carefully cultivated "positive mindset" I was
determined not to let merciless nitpicking critic take over.

Liked:

Generally this movie is a big improvement on the first two. It is
more atmospheric, seems closer in spirit to the books and is less
slavish to the scene by scene adaptation.

It is more richly textured. I loved both the indoor and outdoor
sets - I feel Cuaron has come close to a scenery depiction of JKR's
Potterverse. Obviously some of the settings are the same as the
previous two movies, yet by dint of good lighting, I feel more in
the world I imagine than before. Especially good were the
Hogwarts' extriors, the grounds, Hagrid's hut, the outbuildings,
the landscape around Hogwarts too.

He has managed to get a particular, almost "period" feel to the
whole thing, which not everyone might like, but I liked enormously -
there was an almost late 1940's - early 1950's feel that seemed to
work. A less bright colour to everything which gave it a timeless
look.

The Hogwarts' interiors were better too - possibly again, this was
down to more skilled lighting, but I got more a sense of the life of
the castle/school than before. He seems to to have created better
depth.

The film is much more pacey than its predecessors. Certainly the
first half hour was a beautiful precis of the early action of the
book - without me ever feeling I was losing anything. The scene
with Aunt Marge was an amusing comic set piece - slightly different
from the book, but not to its detriment.

Then we got the first thing, for me, that I think was excellent -
the Knight Bus. Again, not exactly as I imagined it inside, but
witty and a clever setting - the exterior of the Knight Bus was
exactly as in the book - imagine a very shabby over-tall London bus
from the 1950's painted bright (but rather dirty looking) purple,
and you have it. Stan Shunpike was spot on in my opinion. Exactly
as I did his voice when reading the book aloud - and identical to my
mind's eye vision of him. The "shrunken head" that folk were so
worried about is actually acting as comic relief/commentary (in a
wonderful West Indian accent) and I found it fun. The sfx of the
bus travelling round London and dodging the traffic were good and
the views of London excellent, and as far as I could tell,
geograpically sound (though this journey seemed to go direct from
Surrey to London- there were no visits to Wales, for instance).

The Leaky Cauldron was different from Movie 1 and better - more
atmospheric, busier.

Tom was odd - like Igor in Frankenstein movies, not how I imagined
him at all - and not sure I liked that.

The Hogwarts Express was much older looking - again I got a very
forties feel about it. Then we saw Lupin. On this see below.

The kids act better (high time too - though I still don't think they 
are as good as they could be - I should say that any faults in their 
performances are I suspect down to the way they are being 
directed).  Harry's hair looks right, finally. Ron is still being 
depicted as a berk and is mugging at the camera too much, but he is 
better than COS.  I agree that Hermione was way overemphasised.

The Dementors made their appearance on the train and this was very 
good. Not as scary as the Nazgul in LOTR - but that was always going 
to be a tough act to follow. They were even more terrifying as the 
movie progressed. They seemed to fly, though, and I never really got 
that from the book.

The whole movie was a lot pacier (as I already said) and there were
only two interior classroom scenes. These were both good - the
Boggart in the wardrobe is excellent - though not as funny as in the
book. Snape's locum DADA class is pretty good, though again, his
dialogue is castrated, as per bloody usual.

Buckbeak is good - though he is the only Hippogriff. There's a
fairly schmaltzy Harry flying on Buckbeak scene, presumably to keep
the CGI boys happy. Nice if you like schmaltzy flying across a lake
and hippogriff dipping its claws into the water scenes.

Emma Thompson does a fine comic turn as Trelawney.

Dawn French does ditto as the fat lady.

I liked Gary Oldman as Sirius. I thought he worked well, and acted
well, however see below...

The Quidditch match in the rain is very well done, and the arrival
of the Dementors is very scary.

The Marauders' Map was not bad. About as well as could be
expected. Though see below for my big WTF! about the Marauders' 
Map.  The connection between the map and Harry's father and his 
friends is never adequately explained - or the fact that Lupin 
recognises it, and Snape has justified suspicions about it.

The escape/back in time sequence is pacy, and a bit of a curates
egg - parts of it are excellent. Sadly....

Pettigrew - very well done. Looks very rat-like and acts that way
too. Spot on.

Moving moment when Harry said goodbye to Sirius. That was well done, 
but lacked the emotional punch of the book.

Dislikes:

The first half of the movie shows promise that is not borne out by
the second. I'll go into some detail further on.

Here's some minor points:

Hermione is ostentatiously wearing the time-turner in plain sight
of all as if it were her new gold necklace.

The toads were pointless. And my daughter thought they were
brilliant. And I did not comment (I'd been warned not to whinge 
about any canon rape) - I have disliked the toad chorus from first 
seeing the trailer - I still cannot see what the point of that was, 
to my mind it merely took up time that could have been used to 
depict more canon.

Thewlis is just not Lupin. Lovely bloke and all that, but just
wrong. In the first place, he is depicted as some refugee from
wartime - having that pencil moustache, and dressing like an extra
from Goodbye Mr Chips. He has a crystal radio set and listens to
what sounds like Tommy Dorsey. Well, maybe not Tommy Dorsey - but
you get the picture.

The backstory is still not properly explained. We discover that
Snape hates Sirius - but only at the point of their confrontation,
and never why. There has still been no mention of the fact that
they were all contemporaries at Hogwarts. The Prank is never
mentioned.

The fight in Hogsmeade with Malfoy is blown because Harry is not
caught by Snape on return. So no, "What was your head doing in
Hogsmeade" speech.

It is never adequately explained why Hermione has the sodding time
turner in the first place.

The full extent of Sirius's crimes are never properly explained -
"He told Voldemort where the Potters were" - no mention of the
Fidelius, and it implies he merely wrote down the house number and
street on a piece of paper and mailed it to Voldy. There is no 
mention of the Muggles killed or the fact that it was the day after.

The executioner of Buckbeak is some hokey looking weirdo in
skintight black, complete with head mask, looking like an extra
from a Monty Python mediaeval pastiche. He certainly isn't Walden
McNair, former Death Eater.

Sirius is covered in odd looking tatoos - were these some kind of
prison tagging, or what?

The Patronus. It is never fully explained what it is, what it
does. I was disappointed because it was just like a shield thing of
white light. Then at the last time, it is the stag. Why was it
different - the shield thing had worked. I suppose it was to keep
up the idea that it was James who had come back from the dead to
cast the Patronus right until the very end. The scene where the
stag Patronus repels the Dementors is powerful but I was
disappointed by its lack of explanation.

Pettigrew shows up on the Marauder's Map. Now we know he SHOULD
have done, but he didn't in the book.

The Shrieking Shack Scene and other Annoyances.

Oh, hell, lets just say Snape fans will not feel they have got their
moneys worth.

He's half Snape in this movie - not that scary, there's no edge. He
docks points off Hermione "for being an insufferable know-it-all" in
an almost offhand way. There's no malice. There's no real anger.  
POA (the book) is Snape at his nasty best.  Well, the book is, the 
movie is not. 

He does say it (the big big speech) - but only part. "Give me a 
reason" - that's all he says. Not the rest. He does not go ballistic 
at the end. The last we see of Snape in the movie is his being 
stupefied into the fourposter bed in the Shrieking Shack. What a 
bloody waste.

Clearly Kloves does not think Snape is important and that is why he
cuts most of his best lines and much of his scenes. I'm pretty
pissed off about it, as you can imagine.

And I'm sorry Rickmaniacs, he's just looking too old. All the older
generation looked too damn old, but Alan is just failing to suspend
my own personal disbelief.

Finally, what was new?  There have been hints that Cuaron has put 
stuff in that may be significant in later books.  I was on the 
watch, but only picked up one nugget:

We learn from Lupin that Lily was especially kind to him at a
particularly dark time in his life.

That was all I picked up, but there might have been more.

So overall, an entertaining movie experience - as a movie. True
fans will be disappointed in it as a flawed rendition of the book.

My final verdict?

Sack Kloves. Everything else is fixable for Movie 4.


June