Thanks to Harry!
Thanksgiving, 2005. Florida = sunny, warm, nice. Reminder to self: the grass here is itchy. Made my first mashed potatoes, very yummy. Made vegetarian stuffing with Jen, a bit, um . . . large. Should slice the bits smaller next time. Ate entirely too much pie.
Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 2 out of 5.
This fourth movie follows the same pattern as the previous three. In short, kids show up at school. Crazy stuff begins to happen. Harry is somehow involved. Someone knows that something is going on, but does nothing about it. Stuff happens, Harry survives. The end.
The two biggest sticking points for me in the above equation are A) the fact that no one does anything about the "craziness" is infuriating, and makes me feel like anyone who suffers misfortune deserves it for being so dense. Often it's Harry not telling the adults "because they won't believe him" or not believing his dreams "because they're just dreams!" Right. Or else the adults go along with things "in order to draw the evil-doer out into the open." Uh huh. B) is that Harry as a protagonist leaves a lot to be desired. He's got pluck, but he's really, really not very intelligent. He rarely ever uses basic spells, which seem as if they could solve problems quite easily. He still, after four years of being exposed to wizardry, still doesn't know the most basic things about wizardly life. And he needs help figuring out just about anything, EVEN after already receiving hints.
Additionally, folks, this is the most unsafe school EVER. From the ridiculously deadly Quidditch to the random life-threatening species of plants and animals in around the school grounds, no parent with any concern for his children would send his kids to Hogwarts. I understand that J.K. wants the school to seem exciting, but you can have exciting, interesting situations without them being incredibly deadly to children. Even worse, we're never even quite sure, in this movie at least, how dangerous things are. It SEEMS like if a kid isn't rescued from the bottom of the lake near the school, for instance, she'll be left to drown! So Harry breaks the rules and saves her. This is a kid, mind you, completely unrelated to this big "eternal glory" cup everyone's trying to get, one who just happens to be a contestant's little sister, and she is TIED TO THE BOTTOM OF A LAKE. Were they really going to let her drown? And if they weren't, why do they make such a big deal of Harry's "moral fortitude"? Likewise, is the maze EATING contestants? It sure seems like it when the roots wrap someone up and drag them away! And if it wasn't, then why is it so important that Harry rescues his competitor . . . from the, umm, vines, which are just going to, umm, deposit him safely outside the maze? He should've chosen that path, rather than letting himself be sacrificed by going with Harry.
It should be clear by now that I have problems with the basic premise and situations that the author puts her characters in, and the movie really is powerless to do anything but follow the book, so perhaps this has gone beyond a movie review into a fiction review. My advice to J.K. and her characters would be: okay, you've created this interesting magical world and these characters that we maybe care about. Now stop trying to wow us with those characters' banal and obvious uses of magic and get into the meat of it. You need to swim? Well . . . there's a weed that makes you grow gills! Cool. You have some folks walk into a small tent . . . but it's bigger inside than it could be outside! Wee. In the end, the tricks end up seeming more like James Bond toys than magic, and the combat ends up being two people pointing sticks at each other and shouting . . . sound familiar? Yeah, just like guns. Not much creative there.
So, beyond the poor development of a cool concept, what about the movie itself? Too long, choppily edited, poorly acted, very little time or effort developed to interesting character development and no follow-through for what character development there was, bad pacing, and unclear rationalizations for both characters' actions and for the sequences of events that occured. The director seemed to spend more time making sure the sweeping spectacle of Hogwarts was pretty than with making us feel anything for the kids, all of whom should have all KINDS of interesting and complex development going on aside from "I don't like you and I'm sad" vs. "I like you but you don't like me and I'm sad." Finally, this film seemed to try to keep fans happy with a "friendly" style, nods to the fans and the readers, in which liked characters are given screen time (the red-head twins) despite being neither funny nor useful for furthering the plot or setting the mood. Oh, and as a stand-alone movie? Completely incomprehensible to the outsider. I mean, they don't even TRY. Big no-no.
End result? Poor as a movie on its own, entertaining as part of a continuing storyline. We can only hope that whoever directed this one will get the boot, that J.K. backs off from the screenplays and lets someone develop it with a little less strict adherence to the contrived books, and that the kids, of course, will get some acting lessons.
Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 2 out of 5.
This fourth movie follows the same pattern as the previous three. In short, kids show up at school. Crazy stuff begins to happen. Harry is somehow involved. Someone knows that something is going on, but does nothing about it. Stuff happens, Harry survives. The end.
The two biggest sticking points for me in the above equation are A) the fact that no one does anything about the "craziness" is infuriating, and makes me feel like anyone who suffers misfortune deserves it for being so dense. Often it's Harry not telling the adults "because they won't believe him" or not believing his dreams "because they're just dreams!" Right. Or else the adults go along with things "in order to draw the evil-doer out into the open." Uh huh. B) is that Harry as a protagonist leaves a lot to be desired. He's got pluck, but he's really, really not very intelligent. He rarely ever uses basic spells, which seem as if they could solve problems quite easily. He still, after four years of being exposed to wizardry, still doesn't know the most basic things about wizardly life. And he needs help figuring out just about anything, EVEN after already receiving hints.
Additionally, folks, this is the most unsafe school EVER. From the ridiculously deadly Quidditch to the random life-threatening species of plants and animals in around the school grounds, no parent with any concern for his children would send his kids to Hogwarts. I understand that J.K. wants the school to seem exciting, but you can have exciting, interesting situations without them being incredibly deadly to children. Even worse, we're never even quite sure, in this movie at least, how dangerous things are. It SEEMS like if a kid isn't rescued from the bottom of the lake near the school, for instance, she'll be left to drown! So Harry breaks the rules and saves her. This is a kid, mind you, completely unrelated to this big "eternal glory" cup everyone's trying to get, one who just happens to be a contestant's little sister, and she is TIED TO THE BOTTOM OF A LAKE. Were they really going to let her drown? And if they weren't, why do they make such a big deal of Harry's "moral fortitude"? Likewise, is the maze EATING contestants? It sure seems like it when the roots wrap someone up and drag them away! And if it wasn't, then why is it so important that Harry rescues his competitor . . . from the, umm, vines, which are just going to, umm, deposit him safely outside the maze? He should've chosen that path, rather than letting himself be sacrificed by going with Harry.
It should be clear by now that I have problems with the basic premise and situations that the author puts her characters in, and the movie really is powerless to do anything but follow the book, so perhaps this has gone beyond a movie review into a fiction review. My advice to J.K. and her characters would be: okay, you've created this interesting magical world and these characters that we maybe care about. Now stop trying to wow us with those characters' banal and obvious uses of magic and get into the meat of it. You need to swim? Well . . . there's a weed that makes you grow gills! Cool. You have some folks walk into a small tent . . . but it's bigger inside than it could be outside! Wee. In the end, the tricks end up seeming more like James Bond toys than magic, and the combat ends up being two people pointing sticks at each other and shouting . . . sound familiar? Yeah, just like guns. Not much creative there.
So, beyond the poor development of a cool concept, what about the movie itself? Too long, choppily edited, poorly acted, very little time or effort developed to interesting character development and no follow-through for what character development there was, bad pacing, and unclear rationalizations for both characters' actions and for the sequences of events that occured. The director seemed to spend more time making sure the sweeping spectacle of Hogwarts was pretty than with making us feel anything for the kids, all of whom should have all KINDS of interesting and complex development going on aside from "I don't like you and I'm sad" vs. "I like you but you don't like me and I'm sad." Finally, this film seemed to try to keep fans happy with a "friendly" style, nods to the fans and the readers, in which liked characters are given screen time (the red-head twins) despite being neither funny nor useful for furthering the plot or setting the mood. Oh, and as a stand-alone movie? Completely incomprehensible to the outsider. I mean, they don't even TRY. Big no-no.
End result? Poor as a movie on its own, entertaining as part of a continuing storyline. We can only hope that whoever directed this one will get the boot, that J.K. backs off from the screenplays and lets someone develop it with a little less strict adherence to the contrived books, and that the kids, of course, will get some acting lessons.