David Yates
Daniel Radcliffe
Ralph Fiennes
Steve Kloves
Dame Maggie Smith
Alan Rickman
So Harry Potter is fighting Voldemort again and spoiler alert: I don't think J.K. Rowling is a very good writer. Her sentences are often full of sap, the world she creates can at times feel gaudy, and her naming choices can grind on one's nerves after hundreds of pages of quaffles and sniffles and babbity rabbities. That being said there are a couple things Rowling does know how to do. She knows how to keep her books somewhat timeless by leaving out useless pop culture references. She knows how to surprise the reader with shocking magical moments in a sea of magical moments. But above all, she knows how to craft characters that so many people care about and a mythology that the world can share. And from time to time, she even knows how to write a mystery novel.
Director David Yates knows that you can't fit a book into a movie and he doesn't really try. But Harry Potter being what it is, most people go into this movie knowing the whole plot anyway and simply wanting to see their fantasies brought to life... Which says something scary about the state of our imaginations. But Yates services fans well in the time alloted and even does some more. Where Rowling's descriptions sometimes feel about as realistic as the graphics on a Nintendo 64, Yates makes every shot in Harry's grey and black death eater infested world gorgeous to look at. And though some is left out, he doesn't change too much either. He even makes a few scenes more coherent (particularly the final battle). And let's not forget that opening scene where Voldemort waves his wand in the air to make the Warner Brothers logo and remind all the kiddies who the real villain is. I don't know how that sequence made it in there but I'm sure glad it did!
The special affects were also decent through out. Spoiler Alert: the bloody Voldemort fetus on the white floor towards the end was probably cooler than any experimental video Matthew Barney has ever done.
The acting in this film ranges from decent to incredible. Alan Rickman balances his Snapeness well without making it too cheesy. Maggie Smith packs texture into every brief moment we have with her. Hermione and Ron's makeout scene is as sloppy and unattractive as it should be. Radcliffe does his best during his scene with Dumbledore at King's Cross. He loses the glasses so you can see his face and realize he's kinda funny lookin'. I will say that Ralph Fiennes seemed pretty tame here when he had been fearsome before, but maybe that's because his character was weakened in the plot.
And then there's Neville Longbottom. Neville fucking Longbottom. Let's be honest, I grew up reading Harry Potter and I was glassy eyed through most of this thing. But when Neville stepped forward and told Voldemort what was what, the tears were fucking flowing. This was hands down the most powerful moment in the entire film and contained one of the best of Harry Potter's messages- You might be awkward, you might have big buck teeth and bushy hair, your last name might be Longbottom and people might laugh at you, but it doesn't really matter what you're given in life, it's what you do with what you have. I guess that's sort of a rich white person sounding thing to say but considering Rowling was homeless when she started writing these books it sort of makes sense.
Also, I don't want to give it all away but the film also changed a few things about later moments with Neville and there's a certain coy cleverness to the way the script (penned by Steve Kloves) plays with a potter fan's expectations.
I do have a few problems with the Deathly Hallows in both the book and it's film. Mainly the deathly hallows! The deathly hallows are three magical artifacts of unimaginable power. There was literally no need to tack them in when the story already possessed the perfectly serviceable search and destroy element offered by the Horcruxes (For those of you who don't know, Horcruxes are artifacts which contain fragments of Voldemort's soul.) The other problem a part of me has with this film is that it probably had the budget of a small country. But not even the magic of Harry Potter can save us from the horrors of capitalism and it wasn't his job anyway. At the very least, a film this massive will probably help cement Harry Potter into the mythology of this time period for centuries to come.
And that's a position that he sort of deserves. I'm glad and even proud to have come of age during the days of the boy who lived. His unfaltering goodness is sort of troublesome but at least he's not that good looking. And for such a mass culture phenomenon, these films have maintained or perhaps grown to a quality that surpasses that of many of their peers and yes I'm talking to you, Star Wars. So I'll admit that I love Harry Potter... But I think I love Neville Longbottom even more.
8.4
No comments:
Post a Comment