AUSTRALIAN SPOILER ALERT: So...who's seen the movie yet?

[Sean Dwyer]

Beware, I am about to possibly spoil your movie!

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Ok, enough with the warnings. I put myself through real pain to see this
movie so I'm going to have my say :)

With half an hour to go, I did the fastest uphill 3km walk in my life
and I'm still paying for it. Serves me right for sleeping through my
alarm.

Since I know some of you have already seen it, I'll get straight to the
point: I liked this movie, because like the book its a (drumroll) Real
Turning-Point. It assumes you've read the book for a start. It's a lot
more Grown Up in many ways.

Gone is the Disneyesque postcard background, I really felt I was in
Scotland somewhere with bloody great hills and a solid prevailing wind.
Those of us with boarding-school experience will probably shiver, as I
did, with memories of dingy drafty in-the-middle-of-nowhere buildings.
The movie says one thing very effectively: Wizards are Very Dangerous
People. Hermione WILL punch you out if she doesn't turn you into one of
those massive choir-toads :)

I really hope Daniel Radcliffe doesn't give up after movie 4, he's
really hitting his straps now, just teetering on the edge of the
full-blown teenage uncontrollable rage and angst. Emma Watson sneaks in
a scene-stealing performance, and I hope she will also continue. I
thought Rupert Grint got the short end really, just reacting to the
others. Michael Gambon got some pretty silly lines, but the sense that
he was an artful mischief-maker in his own right was clear.

There were _some_ assumptions by the film that were odd. The movie assumes
we know Lupin is Mooney, and so we are not surprised that he knows how
to use the Map. But Harry should have been, and he couldn't have had the
time for a full explaination if we are to take those scenes literally. 

Which brings me to the other assumption: the willing suspension of
disbelief about time. So much of the movie roars through the events of
that year so quickly, that during the time-turner scenes I actually
fidgeted. It was well-done of course, but it still felt uncomfortably
like a deliberate zoom-in to a situation in comparison.

The end was very odd. As if Cuarn just said STOP, I can't be bothered
tying everything up. Just a tad Boys Own after all that grown-up action.

My last line is for the shippers: Hermione and Ron. Deal with it.

Sean (mommy I want a headless horseman WITH the burning head)

-- 
"NOONE expects the Death Eaters! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse
elements as...Fear! Surprise! Ruthless efficiency! An almost fanatical
devotion to Lord Voldermort! Nice black uniforms - oh damn!"