I would guess that Harry Potter is an awkward franchise for this blog; the bloggers are too old and their kids are too young to have to pay attention to the movies. Still, I thought it was worth a quick post.
The fourth Harry Potter movie does some things effectively. There are some fine action sequences, particularly the three tests. The claustrophobic underwater scenes of the second test, and the broad expanse of mist hanging over the maze for the third test build tension and give the whole movie a darker feel than the earlier ones. The teenage romance scenes are pretty horrible, but not quite as cloying as I anticipated. You get a good sense of the disgust felt by 14 year old boys at the prospect of having to deal with girls (or at least you get a good sense of the disgust that adults think 14 year old boys will feel). And the adult acting is superb. Brendan Gleeson is excellent, and Ralph Fiennes manages to be menacing without going completely over the top. His nose is the perfect replica of a snake’s.
But, quite remarkably, this movie is written so as to be utterly unintelligible to anyone who has not read the book. There are brief, telegraphic scenes (the Quidditch World Cup, portkeys, Polyjuice Potion) that must be bewildering to the casual viewer. My kids (8 and 12) loved the earlier movies but were pretty disappointed by this one. In part it was that favorite sections of the book were butchered or ignored entirely, and in part that this movie did not follow the architecture of the earlier ones; the structure of the school year at Hogwarts, and the inevitable comic relief of the Dursleys, are simply not there. In order to cover the plot of a 750 page book, Mike Newell decided to be ruthless with detail, and this meant that the movie, from a kid’s perspective, had less of the comfort of a recognized form.
Given that the reviews have been very positive, it would be interesting to know if there is a disjuncture between how kids and adults react to this movie.
I don’t know how the smiley face appeared in my post, nor how to edit it out. But it should read 12 and 8.
My six-year-old daughter and I just finished reading Goblet of Fire last night (I have now officially read the first four of these books to myself and out loud: that’s fatherhood). We plan on attending the film this week, maybe during the lunch hour on Thursday. I hope its not too scary (my daughter has officially drawn the line at anything involving Gollem, but other than that she’s pretty good with frightening stuff–then again she also adores all straight-to-DVD Barbie animation (Pegasus, Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Tristan and Isolde . . . Barbie is the bain of my existence).
That smiley face is creeping me out.
i actually watch the harry potter movies, even though i haven’t read any of the books. i quite liked the last one as well. will probably wait for this to come to dvd though.
(you got the smiley face because the software interprets your putting a “8” so close to a “)” as your wanting to insert that smiley face. i’ve fixed it and also broken the post up so only half of it appears on the front page.)
it’s true that I’m old…but I am waiting to spawn until I can genetically engineer a kid who will make tons of money and take care of me in my twilight years…
I’m admittedly not a fan of the books, but I made it through the first two films and actually liked the third.
I found this one to be, alas, a return to form. Dullsville for the non-fanatics; I could follow the story, but the radical condensation of key plot details allowed the old problem of faithful adaptations to emerge. The folks who know the books (the kids) can tick off big plot details, and giggle happily at small character “details.” But rather than develop character, we get small character details; rather than mood or aesthetic, we get wannabe-Spielbergian crane swoops and lots and lots and lots of CGI. Did I mention lots of CGI?
I will give a nod, however, to Fiennes, who shows up briefly as the big evil dude and … well the whole movie powers up. It’s a moving and uncomfortable scene, far more effective than anything else the film had offered. And while lots of the other great actors get a spare line or two to relish, Fiennes is given room NOT to grandstand. He instead opts for underplaying… or, well, underplaying as much as someone playing a Dark Evil Genius could conceivably manage.
In the book a noseless Voldemort serves as an opportunity to deliver page upon page of exposition so its good to know things have been pared downa bit. We’re off to see it tomorrow–seeing as I was not necessarily wowed by Azkhaban (good, better than the first two, but nothing extraordinary), I’m expecting little more than a great opportunity to hold my daughter’s hand.
Yes, dullsville. Cate wasn’t scared so much as bored. I found it to be mildly amusing. Kloves’ adaptation actually impressed me and managed to improve upon the book in major places (particularly the Madeye Moody and Barty Crouch, Jr. characters), but still . . . a bit leaden. That being said, Harry Potter is quite buff.
Potter may be buff, but–didn’t he look like a Thunderbirds puppet? That oversized head and hairdo, the grotesque eyebrows? I bet he’s early stages of acromegaly.
you stop picking on pete!
watched it last night. i liked it, but agree that it must have been tough going for those who have not read the book. the culmination of the voldemort-harry duel in particular, which is explained in great detail in the book, is left completely unexplained here. i am no longer among those who have not read the books, having read all of them in a week’s span in early january. i thought the film did well to dispense with the house-elf emancipation subplot of the book, which frankly made me cringe. i’m also sick of the dursleys and was glad not to see them again. michael gambon, who filled in admirably for harris in the previous movie, seemed weak to me in the extended action scenes here. or maybe it is the shadow of ian mckellen’s gandalf that diminishes him?
i can’t imagine the remaining movies in the series will be any more comprehensible to lay viewers as the books have got bigger and more complicatedly plotted.
Arnab, as a connoisseur of accents, you will have appreciated that Michael Gambon’s accent fluctuated wildly in the course of the movie: English, Irish, vaguely Germanic at one point. I think he was trying out for future movies.