FILM: PoA Review - MINOR SPOILERS

[GulPlum]

I've just got back from one of the first public shows (and most of the 
second) and wanted to share a few views. I've seen what's been said over 
the last couple of days in reply to Olivier's query regarding spoilers, so 
I'll try to keep details to a minimum.

Here's a bit of waffle in lieu of spoiler space. I've been away and/or 
extremely busy over the last few months and have been completely unable to 
follow. let alone participate in, the HP fandom. I hope to have a bit of 
time over the next few weeks at least so will attempt to catch up. A few 
people have tried contacting me and I apologise to them for my extended 
silence.

before I say anything further, I should say that I've not touched the book 
of PoA since before OotP came out, most deliberately, so that the contents 
(and chronology) would be fairly foggy in my mind and I could approach the 
movie with something approaching an open mind. I'm therefore more likely to 
be forgiving of changes made to the story's structure than those people 
who've got the text memorised. :-)

Anyway, on with my views on this film, starting with some less surprising 
(and thus unlikely to be spoilerish) notes.

As several "big time" reviewers have already pointed out, the most 
significant difference which is immediately noticeable between this film 
and its predecessors is the colour palette and shot selection. Gone are the 
brightly-lit bright reds, golds and greens, and in come shades of grey, 
with muted browns, greens and blues. We immediately have notice of this 
with the title frame, and indeed the Warner Brothers logo, both in greyscale.

Dumbledore is no longer bright and breezy, both in costume and aspect, but 
wears a muted grey cloak and hat, and has his grey (rather than white) 
beard tied in the middle. Nevertheless, I must admit that despite 
preferring Dumbledore's old costume, I much prefer Gambon's "absent-minded 
professor" to Richard Harris's "old sage". The look of pure innocence on 
his face when Harry and Hermione return from their adventure into the past 
is priceless! (as for his lackadaisical attitude towards Ron's broken 
leg...). :-)

As for the shot selection, some people will say that the film was replete 
with cliches and corny re-hashes, but I far prefer Cuaron's 
constantly-moving camera swooping over and through the action to Columbus's 
series of close-ups. This doesn't mean that Cuaron eschews close-ups 
completely - on a couple of occasions, he gets in so tight on Dan's face 
that one can notice the first stirrings of adolescent peach-fuzz on his 
cheeks and chin. :-) There's one Citizen Kane-inspired shot in particular, 
which I dearly want to know how it was done. The camera moves from the 
infirmary door, all along the corridor and then *through* the clock-face 
window, down through the grounds, to rest on the area around Hagrid's hut.

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.

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! The shots of the willow aren't totally spurious, 
though, as the tree serves as our recurring indicator and barometer of the 
changing seasons (green then brown leaves which are shed, branches covered 
in snow, etc). The change to winter is also indicated by what was to my 
mind an entirely unnecessary and corny shot of Hedwig flying through a 
bright sky which becomes snow-laden. I couldn't understand the purpose of 
that shot's inclusion, as we then see the snow-laden Willow.

And finally on the subject of repeating motifs, we have the crows. They're 
*everywhere*! I can just imagine what a nightmare it must've been on set 
with them crapping all over the place...

A couple more notes on artistic flourishes and other details before I get 
down to the plot, which is where any real spoilers will be.

The music is very much "grown up" John Williams rather than the sweet tunes 
that he composed for the first movie. The original theme appears, but 
generally subtly disguised. The same goes for the Quidditch theme, which 
has had a complete make-over for the made-over approach to the sport. I 
know that some people have acquired (or at least listened to) the 
soundtrack album - I've deliberately kept myself away from that so the 
music isn't entirely at the top of my mind, but this is also a good thing 
inasmuch as it wasn't the constant overbearing presence which it was in the 
first two movies. If there is any one theme which occurs repeatedly, it's 
the toad chorus we've all come to wonder about. Whilst the full song is 
completely out of place and whose inclusion is (to me at least) 
incomprehensible during the start of year feast, it's an interesting motif 
and comes up again and again at appropriate moments, sometimes with 
variations.

I *like* the new uniforms. And the fact that the kids spent the majority of 
the screen time in street-clothes isn't really a problem, as a significant 
proportion of the plot happens at night (or, indeed, at Hogsmeade). One 
costume change I noticed immediately is that Malfoy now sports some kind of 
signet ring which I find a wonderful touch. On a compeltely different 
level, I'm not sure if it was intentional, but Percy has a SERIOUS acne 
problem! (or should that be Chris Rankin?). :-)

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. The adults have been 
reduced to little more than cameos, if that. Snape-fans will be sorely 
disappointed, and I expect Gary Oldman's admirers will also feel a little 
short-changed. The only actor with more than a tiny handful of lines is, of 
course, David Thewlis, whom I'd never identified as Lupin, but now I'm 
sold. Nevertheless, he's been given a costume and a few mannerisms which I 
find just a little strange - 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!

OK, on to the plot. During the transition from page to screen, some things 
worked and, regrettably, some didn't. Some things work better (IMO) on 
screen than they did on the page. I think the whole time-travel sub-plot 
was done very well, including just a couple of extra "incursions" of the 
pair into their past - I won't identify them, but in the first case, it 
took me (literally) a second to realise why something inexplicable had 
happened. I inwardly groaned as soon as it happened, not because of the way 
it was done, but because I had asked myself for that split second how it 
had come about. (I'm being deliberately vague.)

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.

Top of the list for me are:

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).

Sirius's and Snape's (past) relationship isn't mentioned *at all*. Seeing 
as one of my major gripes with the first movie (and the reason I read the 
book in the first place) is that no attempt is made to explain why Snape 
might hate Harry, I suppose I had no reason to expect anything here, but as 
this is a post-OotP movie, we *know* that this relationship comes to the 
fore and some kind of *mention* of it would have been helpful. The loss of 
the entire Infirmary confrontation with Snape, whilst understandable, is a 
major detriment to the pacing and plotting of this film.

It's never made clear that MWPP & Snape were class contemporaries. In fact, 
the film doesn't include a scene in which Lupin introduces the fact that he 
knew James and Lily at all. One of the presumably deliberate assumptions 
the film implies is that the conversation during which Lupin tells Harry 
about what his mother was like is not the first conversations they may have 
had on the subject.

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 (although perhaps the intention had been that by using that 
particular word, the viewer should jump to that conclusion). As a result, 
there is no explanation (or indeed reason) why Snape would have gone to the 
Whomping Willow when he does.

The screenplay created a problem for itself by (in some senses, adroitly) 
introducing the viewer to the concept of Animagi during the class on 
werewolves. Whilst this results in no need for a Transfiguration class in 
the movie, and makes a direct connection between the two methods of 
human-animal transformation, we get no background on there being a 
register, or of the three friends becoming Animagi in order to support 
Lupin. Once the stag appears, therefore, there is no reason to make a 
connection between it and James.

I thought the conversation in the Three Broomsticks and exposition on the 
background of *that* Halloween Night was particularly badly handled. First, 
Hagrid isn't there to give the recital some kind of human, emotional 
content, or to connect it *directly* to Harry. Second, there's no mention 
of the Fidelius (and therefore the extent of Sirius's presumed crime). In 
fact, the scene makes absolutely no dramatic sense as there is no reason 
whatsoever for Fudge and McGonagall to be telling all this stuff to 
Rosmerta (it's not quite as bad in the book), to be overheard by harry 
(alone, rather than with Ron and Hermione).

Whilst the Daily Prophet with the photo of the Weasleys in Egypt is shown, 
no connection is made to Sirius or his having seen it - there is therefore 
no explanation why he would choose this moment to escape from Azkaban and 
go after Scabbers, or indeed no explanation is made why he has become 
convinced that Peter's alive.

Those items are far from the only excisions from the book, but as far as 
I'm concerned, the film as it stands (and the characters' motivations) 
become completely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't read the book. 
Unlike the previous two, I can only assume that the powers that be decided 
that there was no point in going after the audience that hadn't read them. 
I assume that their reasoning was that those parents (who'd NOT read the 
book) going to see it with their children (who HAD) can simply count on the 
kids to join the dots. Those kids who'd not read the books are probably too 
young to understand the nuances anyway.

Despite those shortcomings, I don't think that the fans have been *too* 
badly served. The film's pace is much, much better than the first two; 
there are no longueurs and I'm grateful for the loss of Columbus's 
trademark "stare at the camera and scream" shot, although there are a 
couple of variations - or are they homages? - e.g. Ron howling (as seen in 
the trailer) which actually *works*!

I'm also grateful that Jim Dale's invented pronunciation of 
"animagus/animagi" as heard in the U.S. audiobooks has been given the short 
shrift it deserved and the words are pronounced correctly (to my mind, at 
least).

The Harry we see in this film is more recognisably the one from the books. 
This isn't meek "insult me all you want" Harry, this is sharp-witted and 
barb-mouthed Harry (one of the reasons I like him the books and dislike him 
in the first two movies). His riposte to Snape in the hallway should have 
been joined by more (incidentally, having Harry read out the Map's 
insulting comment was a masterstroke - it's just a pity that they only 
included one of the four, and we didn't see the text on screen).

One little continuity gripe with which to finish this section: when Harry 
first makes his appearance in the snow, we can see the great footprints 
he's making. When he has his bit of fun with Malfoy & Co while they're all 
admiring the Shrieking Shack, does he suddenly stop making footprints? 'Cos 
nobody seems to know what's going on (including Ron & Hermione)... :-) (I'm 
sure there are other continuity errors but I couldn't be bothered to spot 
them.)

Final section of my comments: JKR has been quoted as stating that Cuaron 
has brought to the fore some things which aren't meant to be evident until 
the last two books. To my mind, two things spring out: there is absolutely 
no ambiguity about a Ron-Hermione romantic pairing; despite spending quite 
some time together, the only touch between Harry and Hermione is when he 
shields her from Werewolf!Lupin and she buries her head in his chest. 
However, Ron seems to want (and gets) a lot of TLC from her when they come 
out from under the Whomping Willow with his broken leg...

The other thing is something I've thought about since first seeing the 
first movie - Lily Potter is played by a "named" actress (i.e. Geraldine 
Somerville is far from a "nobody", at least on this side of the Atlantic), 
whereas James is played by someone I'd not even heard of previously (and I 
see a *lot* of movies, including small British ones, although to be fair, 
he was in "Soldier Soldier" on TV which was big although I didn't watch 
it).  Since then, however, Adrian Rawlins made "Wilbur Wants to Kill 
Himself" in which he had a major part (and at last I could get an idea of 
what James might sound like, though broad Scottish doesn't really fit the 
bill). Anyway, my point is that in the big scheme of things (i.e. the whole 
series and its finale), Lily is far more important a character than James. 
The way Lupin chooses to talk about the past in the PoA movie (and indeed 
the fact that Petunia Dursley seems to have a dark secret, hinted at in 
OotP) seem to indicate that Lily has more of a function in the past (and 
possibly present) of the Potterverse than James. Indeed, whilst a lot of 
people are interested in MWPP's schooldays, I for one am more interested in 
Lily's...

There are probably 100 more things I wanted to say about this movie, but 
seeing as I could've seen it twice (including getting to and from the 
cinema) in the time it's taken me to write the above, I think I'll shut up 
now and leave the floor to other people.

I am, of course, more than willing to share further views on this topic 
once I've seen the movie again - tomorrow. ;-)