Re: 2007 Film List
I'm going to go through your critique of the movie because having experienced mingled feelings myself with the picture, I think your posts are a great outline for me to shake out my thoughts.
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Originally Posted by Adam_S
Easily the weakest of the five Harry Potter films, OOtP manages to be both lifeless, charmless and overall spiritless by the numbers romp through a convoluted storyline.
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I don't know if it's the worst, but it's certainly not my favorite. In terms of sheer movie-going experience, it's right down there with Sorcerer's Stone/Philosopher's Stone. Both films utterly fail to build upon themselves like the middle three films do. Saw what you will about
Chamber of Secrets, but until that sugary sweet and out-of-character resolution, it's an incredibly well-constructed mystery probably the movie that best captures the mystery of its book. Scenes really do feed off each other in that movie.
The editing of
Order of the Phoenix by contrast can best be described as "clumps". There are clumps that contain scenes which feed off one another, like the Umbridge/DA clump, and the Ministry of Magic clump. But I never felt like I was being dragged relentlessly forward to some inevitable conclusion like I did with the book. That said, there are flashes of real brillance: the Daily Prophet business is handled far more elegantly than I would have come up with, conveying the humor, the politics and the exposition without losing anything critical. Likewise, the decision to craft his visions from flashes from the previous four movies was a masterstroke. I've built up a lot of affinity for this movie series, and it's nice to see that mined for the proper emotional gravitas.
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Worse than that, it's lost the sense of fun, and is just dull, literally nearly a chore to sit through, saved by a few good moments.
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I felt like I was sitting in Trelawney's classroom, stifled by the hot fires in a small dark room. That oppressive quality worked well in translating Harry's emotional state in the movie. It didn't make a particularly enjoyable time.
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First the positives: To my surprise, the performances were the outstanding strength of this film, Radcliffe is like a completely different actor, as is Grint, Hermione simply wasn't given much to do in this film, which was dissappointing but made up for by the superb performance by Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood--she was the definite standout exceptional quality of the film.
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Amongst a whole field of things I'm conflicted about, one thing this film deserves credit for is finally, finally, FINALLY getting Ron right. For the first time, we're largely laughing with Ron instead of at him. In the books, Ron is the everyman of the trio, not the court jester. That quality was captured perfectly here without sacrificing any of Rupert's charm or humor. And in a film this dreary, every once of humor is essential. Evanna Lynch WAS a breath of fresh air. Every scene with her felt like a call back to the earlier films when we were outside of Harry's oppressive fog. She was everything the film as whole was not - airy, whimsical, light-hearted and clever. Every moment with her was like coming up for oxygen.
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Also well handled was when Harry and Sirius team up to duel, and Occlumency was pretty well done as well.
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Occlumency was a triumph of adaptation. There were beats missing, important moments missing that I loved in the book, but it didn't FEEL incomplete. I felt everything in the movie that I did in the book, if not quite as acutely. Rickman is unstoppable as Snape, and this was the first movie to give him something truly complex and substantial to work with.
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Dumbledore and Voldemort's fight had some neat moments but was overall a letdown.
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This comes down largely to Gambon's performance. He never feels like he's in a fight for his life. That said, I still think the fight here was far more effective than the fight in Goblet of Fire.
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the scenes with Dumbledore's Army were outstanding.
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Incredibly well done. I particularly liked the way they added each new revelation from the newspaper, Umbridge, whatever, to the mirror as a reminder of why they were doing it. One of the few sequences in the film where the to-the-marrow editing added rather than hindered the tension of the scenes.
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Biggest negative was the dialogue Harry was given to say to 'repulse' Voldemort from possessing him.
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I ate it up with a spoon. It distilled, in a couple of sentences, everything that seperates the two of them. When Voldemort assaulted his mind, all he was able to dig up were memories of love and companionship. When Dumbledore whispered in Harry's ear (the first and only time I've bought Gambon as Dumbledore), he was showing how much he does understand. Harry one that battle, as sure if they'd battled physically. This movie was two hours of dreary and awful. That Harry could come through all of that and feel ultimately pity shows his extraordinarily powerful spirit. It damn near justified all of that murkiness and loss of fun. Considering how unmagical and almost antiseptic the bulk of the movie is, that moment was like a slap across the face it was so beautifully human. For the first time in a Harry Potter movie, I damn near cried.
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A close second was the completely inadequete directing, editing and cinematography. Besides a fairly bland look, the film was cut very poorly, it may be by ten or twenty minutes the shortest of the five films, but it definitely felt twenty or thirty minutes longer than any of the other films, this was partially because there was utterly no panache or life to the staging, blocking or general composition, so nothing was communicated in the dynamic between foreground and background, layered reactions, meaningful nonparticipants in a scene etc. In short there was absolutely no gravitas or sense meaning or purpose to 95% of the film (the only parts that contained that were the DA scenes).
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I thought the cinematography was wonderfully appropriate the the mood and story at hand. It doesn't mean I didn't like the look of the earlier films better (I did) but that they wouldn't have been appropriate this time around. Everything we see is from Harry's point of view this time around, and the cinematography reflected that. What gives me hope for the next film is the scenes at the beginning and end of the film: before the dementors arrive, the cinematography is colorful, dynamic and lively. After Harry drives Voldemort out once and for all, the cinematography is colorful dynamic, and lively the scene where all of the students are walking to the train is an example. I appreciated almost every shot in the picture, and Slawomir Idziak's past work is brilliant.
Black Hawk Down is proof that he can be a master at using color and mise-en-scène to tell a story.
The major culprit for me is the editing: plot threads from the book are introduced that don't need to be, and other plot threads that need to be followed through simply aren't. I've never seen a film skip and jump along like this one, not just between scenes but in the middle of them. Establishing and bridging shots that need to be there simply aren't.
I had more here, but my web browser ate it; fortunately I copy my posts to the clipboard periodically. I want to come back and engage some of your specific problem areas later on.
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So much of the film felt like a best of reel of the book. What I liked about Goblet of Fire is they pared it down to the core story, and I felt really nailed the dynamics of the trio's relationship for the first time, even though it was a massive set of changes from the book (apparently many people think I'm crazy for liking Goblet of Fire and same people love OotP, so what do I know).
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Goblet of Fire is easily my favorite of the five movies. It was the most seamless adaptation even though huge chunks of plot were left at the wayside; it came together as an organically cohesive whole. It was also the one movie that let the universe intermingle without Harry as a strict pivot point. There were all sorts of minor side plots playing out on the fringes, which I loved. So much was thrown out that comparisons ceased being possible. After four films, it was like Kloves finally conquered the material. He's back for HBP, and Yates is eager to go in a livelier, "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" direction with it. If he can hire a decent editor, we might have hope.
/4.
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), but can you blame them? I wasn't really feeling it like I wanted to (I was distracted by the belief that the one other patron 10 seats behind me was a serial killer) until that great recording session performance. The same song (which I intend to acquire) was played over a later montage, and is the best of the film. The rest is OK, I found some of the numbers (a generous expression) a bit too long, but Indie Rock fans should have an absolute blast.
It was the sort of soundstaginess of that set that sucked a lot of the magic out of the ministry of magic for me. Likewise for the Veil room, it just felt so random because there was no set up to it, like everything else in the film it was radically disconnected from most everything else in the film.
