Friday, November 18, 2005

harry potter!!!!!!!!!

harry potter 4 is awesome!!

quick review -
- best of the 4 movies, i think. direction was great.
- the entire thing is very FAST, in particular the beginning. i think this is a bit of a necessary evil, when there is so much to get done, and really very limited amount of time to do it in. maybe 10 seconds at most on the portkey, ~3 minutes on the world cup, ~1 1/2 minutes on the death eater terrorizing...
- the images are great - really nice shots, and the magic is looking more seamless.
- cho chang! whoo hoo scottish asian girls! she didn't have enough lines, though, but she was so cute.
- no veela! ;_;
- generally good acting. it's always a bit touch and go with the kids -- daniel radcliffe does an overall good job in this one, better than the other movies i think, especially since the book calls for a ton of range from him and he has to carry the whole thing. rupert grint is getting a liiittle too big (too tall, too old looking) to be fussy and sad lipped and pulling the covers up while he simmers, all -mad- at harry. and emma watson, while getting to be quite pretty, is also the Queen of Overacting and Stylized Voice. as in the previous movies, the adults are all much, much better - mad-eye moody is the primary force here, just enough quirkyness and lunacy to make his character tick, plus miranda richardson as rita skeeter is lovely even without some of the finer plot details that the book gives her. i love alan rickman, enough said. and as for the triwizards...holy ****, cedric diggory is so f-ing hot! eek! i have always imagined pavel as krum (jess, you are with me on that one, right?), so i was "meh" on him...and overall disappointed in fleur. the plot is structured so that she is the weakest contestant already, she wasn't particularly striking in any way, or impressive, and since they didn't introduce veela, there was no explanation for ron finding her so incredible.
- ray fiennes as voldemort? perfect. so, so good.
- midnight movie audience choice quotes:

(at 12.06am, 5 mins past when the movie was supposed to start, and the slideshow ads looped for the billionth time) "this is...torture!"

(in response to the slew of girls in the audience who hooted when harry took off his shirt in the bathtub scene) "HE'S FOURTEEN!"

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aww, see, they describe Krum as surly and short, so I never really made the Pavel connection :) Also I guess that book came out before I started college, so I had a picture prior to meeting Pavel.

(There was a time when my friends and I were like, a year older than HP & co. Like, I think book 3 came out when we were in ninth grade, so they would've been in eighth. Now they're only a year ahead of my little sister, and I would not surprised if she graduatesHS before they do/would.)

Anonymous said...

yeah i'm going to have to disagree with you about it being the best one. the second one was the best one by far. i think the problem with this new HP is that it relied too much on people already reading the book.

the new characters did not get nearly enough time on screen or lines. they didn't even get a proper introduction, i think. everybody else in the theater knew who they were, but all i got from them was their names. too shallow for all the hype.

also i didn't feel like there was enough explanation of what was going on in the movie. they just seemed to jump from scene to scene - too disjoint. in the second HP i felt like i was being taken on a tour of the HP world which was magical and fantastic. in the fourth, all of the scenes seemed kind of limited / not very spacious. there was some magic but it was not very fantastic.

and the fight scene at the end? weak.
weak weak weak.

and the kids are getting old. and ron has manboobies.

imo #4 was just average. the movie was solid in terms of production quality, but the characters and relationships / dialog / story felt really shallow. but i do feel like it has much to do with me not having read the book before seeing the movie. but that's why i saw the movie instead of reading the book.

Shane said...

"cho chang! whoo hoo scottish asian girls! she didn't have enough lines, though, but she was so cute."

Reason enough for me to see this...
:)

Anonymous said...

re: your last comment

what's the best part about f'ing a 14-year old girl?

turn her around and you've got a 14-year old boy.

Anonymous said...

(loud groan in the distance)

jadis said...

oh my god. MARCOS! is that you?! are you lurking in my damn blog, advertising dirty jokes?!