A (Tardy) Bitter Rant to Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Part I)
8 January 2012
Note: Is it called a review? I will try and keep this as simple-worded as possible (because I know how much you all love to torture your eyes with reading). Read if you care to. Comments are not expected. Ignore the strange font styles. LJ is being screwy.
Warning: All Rickmaniacs should stay clear of the wolves’ den. You will not find what you expect to find here. Vamoose! This turned out longer than I wanted it to be...
What can I say? Is the film good? Is it bad? Mediocre? Overrated? It’s really none of these things. Well, it might be somewhat overrated; I can’t believe the lengths Warner Bros. is going through with their For Your Consideration Oscar Nomination campaign. All I can say at this point is I walked into the theatre (five months ago) not expecting too much or too little, but left feeling underwhelmed. In comparison to the breath of fresh air that was Part 1, Part 2 was definitely lacking something…
I have no proper review rant for Part 1 and probably never will write one. You probably remember my harshly critical pre-review pre-rant of the film (based on one puny TV Spot), and I would reevaluate my words now that I’ve seen the film (well, the half-arsed special effects during the Battle Over Little Whinging more or less ruined the experience for me). It wasn’t flaw-free, it was nothing of the sort, but that particular film left me wondering, ‘’Why didn’t they make all the films like this?’’ Evened pacing, nice flow between one event to the next, no sloppy performances from the young cast (surprisingly enough they carried the film all by themselves without much support from the nearly absent adult cast), character development and room for thought-included with a stunning animated scene and brilliant song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
It felt like a film-albeit being set in medias res. When has the Potter films ever felt like films to be enjoyed as stand-alone features? (I’ll probably give it to the first one since at the time there was nothing else to compare it with; Prisoner of Azkaban was the most cinematic, though.) Too, Emma Watson gave her best performance (particularly during a so-called torture sequence; she's not a great actress, though she was unexpectedly decent). I was actually-gasp!-impressed with Yates’ directorial approach for the first time since he helmed the films, and the conclusion felt resolved, even though I knew there was still so much more to go. It didn’t make up for his past unforgiveable flaws mistakes nor whitewashed Part 1’s flaws, but Part 1 gave me some hopes for Part 2.
What did I end up watching?
‘’What the f*** is this?!’’
It sounds bad. Underneath a mask of figurative exaggeration, it wasn’t that bad, not the worst of the Potter films made, but to say it frankly, it really could have been better-for the last film, obviously. It may be one of the best reviewed films of the year (no joke), but I really have to wonder about those critics… were we really watching the same movie? (The critics screening, no doubt, must have been filled with a bunch of Crabbes and Goyles.)
I’m not going to give a point-by-point dissection per scene of the film, but rather a non-linear jumble of thoughts rated best to worst to painful.
The Good:
Alexandre Freaking Desplat’s Amazing Score - (If there was nothing much else worthy about this film…) Desplat created my favourite Potter score, conveying human emotions while in stark contrast Williams’ imitated emotions with annoying trumpets (and yet Desplat was inspired by him). Only a genius mind as his would write and compose a piece as haunting as ‘’Lily’s Theme’’, beautifully vocalised by Joe Hisaishi’s daughter Mai Fujisawa. The original composition was so genius it could have done without the corporation of John Williams’ and Nicolas Hooper’s scores (because those guys are mediocre at best… oops). I can see this element with a potential film award. If Desplat is sadly overlooked, then every voting committee can just shove the whole of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry up their selective arseholes.
The Awesomeness that is Dame Maggie Smith - Shit is going down and she knows it. She can make a cheap knitting needle wand actually look threatening.
Warwick Davis - Didn’t you know? Little people are awesome. Only someone as versatile as Davis would get the privilege to play dual roles. The goblin make-up was technically brilliant.
The Gringotts Break-In and King’s Cross - Singularly the best whole scenes in the film. Largely every other scene had major flaws.
In Perspective:
The Casting
Enter Boardwalk Empire’s Kelly MacDonald - The greatest casting choice since Evanna Lych’s Luna Lovegood.
The Prince’s Tale and The Epilogue Kids - For as little screen time as the new generation of Potter kids had, they somehow fit their roles so well, and the filmmakers just had to select the adorable ones out of all the possible kids they could have picked.
'’Oh, you burst my bubble.’’
The Bad:
The Main Opening - After the ‘’Lily’s Theme’’ Prologue, the opening scenes at Shell Cottage were terribly weak: immediate jump in medias res without proper introduction, slow pace, and boring, unattractive dialogue which seemed more fitting for the middle of the movie. Anyone who’d just happen to walk into the movie without notice would think so. A sort of montage of images showing brief glimpses into the destruction of the wizarding society (or something) beforehand would have worked nicely. However, everything falls into place once the trio and Griphook leave the scene.
The Battle of Hogwarts - Narnia will forever put Harry Potter’s ‘’epic battle’’ to shame, unless a decent remake comes along and convinces me otherwise.
Compare?
The Pacing - Either too fast or too slow. I get the aim in action, but there was little to no flow from one event to the next. You had no time to grapple your mind over anything that was happening (or when given too much time, you didn’t know what to think), which is expected in a jump-by-jump war film, but even a decent war film gives the audience some time to relish in the moment. Thank Rowling this ended up being the shortest film in the series because I don’t think I could handle sitting through whole three hours of this.
The Characters of Ron and Hermione - What did they actually do in the whole two hours of the movie? Wasted oxygen on one or two Horcruxes; non-verbally confessed their serious love for one another and wasted more oxygen; snogged without oxygen; made future plans to make ginger-haired babies off-screen while wasting much more oxygen, what an accomplishment. And Nagini? They couldn’t even do that right. What a waste of oxygen. It only takes one to spawn hell…
Harry really could have done without their help, and the oxygen. Notice especially during Snape’s death scene… watching their statue-like reaction in the background is just too funny. They don’t even make the slightest effort to do anything, and waste tons of oxygen.
‘’Shit man, he’s going to die anyways. What does he need oxygen for?’’
‘’Shut the fuck up, Donny.’’
Ron, just don’t stand there and waste more oxygen than you already wasted when your best mate is about to be sacrificed… Ron, you do realise you may never see him again? Now you’re wasting valuable blinking space.
Too, nobody gives a flying damn about their emo-teenage romance, so the filmmakers and cast that dedicated one-third of the press junkets to the ‘’much anticipated Ronmione kiss’’ can stop wasting oxygen making it out to be the greatest sex-gig since Titanic. It was lame at best.
Harry and Ginny - Practically everything is wrong with this relationship. I just pretend it doesn’t exist. Oxygen snatchers, indeed. Quit wasting our air.
*Certain* Make-up & Hair - Snape had some serious distracting eyeliner going on, which didn’t help with his age. I don’t mind the movie people going for an ‘’Alice Cooper/Sweeney Todd’’ look, but it was applied in a way where you could literally tell he was wearing make-up (wonder much where Snape keeps it?). All I could focus on was that eyeliner and nothing else. And the wig looked horribly misplaced from the rest of Rickman’s features, more so than it ever has. Unnaturally longish, curly and froggish? Huge distraction.
The Costumes - What was Jany Temime thinking with that horrible brown jacket she made Harry wear? Too, Hermione’s wardrobe would have been less distracting without the equally horrible combination of the terribly contrasted pink hoodie and blue denim jacket. Talk about mood displacement. I also had a slight problem with Dumbledore and Snape’s wardrobes in The Prince’s Tale montage. What an effort, costume department, to make it look set 16 years prior, my the differences (more on this below).
Looks aside…
The Performances - The cast weren’t as shabby as they were during Mike Newell’s turn of Year 4, but all believability and credibility that was present in Part 1 (and certain previous films) was suddenly taken away. The trio in general was disappointing, when I thought they had finally pulled through in Part 1. Tom Felton is the most accomplished actor of the young cast, so I’ll exclude him and I was pleasantly impressed with Matthew Lewis’ small performance as Neville Longbottom. I have my two cents for Ralph Fiennes, but he wasn’t bad-he was worse (that’s further below).
This is getting to be lengthy. Part II is on the way...
Note: Is it called a review? I will try and keep this as simple-worded as possible (because I know how much you all love to torture your eyes with reading). Read if you care to. Comments are not expected. Ignore the strange font styles. LJ is being screwy.
Warning: All Rickmaniacs should stay clear of the wolves’ den. You will not find what you expect to find here. Vamoose! This turned out longer than I wanted it to be...
What can I say? Is the film good? Is it bad? Mediocre? Overrated? It’s really none of these things. Well, it might be somewhat overrated; I can’t believe the lengths Warner Bros. is going through with their For Your Consideration Oscar Nomination campaign. All I can say at this point is I walked into the theatre (five months ago) not expecting too much or too little, but left feeling underwhelmed. In comparison to the breath of fresh air that was Part 1, Part 2 was definitely lacking something…
I have no proper review rant for Part 1 and probably never will write one. You probably remember my harshly critical pre-review pre-rant of the film (based on one puny TV Spot), and I would reevaluate my words now that I’ve seen the film (well, the half-arsed special effects during the Battle Over Little Whinging more or less ruined the experience for me). It wasn’t flaw-free, it was nothing of the sort, but that particular film left me wondering, ‘’Why didn’t they make all the films like this?’’ Evened pacing, nice flow between one event to the next, no sloppy performances from the young cast (surprisingly enough they carried the film all by themselves without much support from the nearly absent adult cast), character development and room for thought-included with a stunning animated scene and brilliant song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
It felt like a film-albeit being set in medias res. When has the Potter films ever felt like films to be enjoyed as stand-alone features? (I’ll probably give it to the first one since at the time there was nothing else to compare it with; Prisoner of Azkaban was the most cinematic, though.) Too, Emma Watson gave her best performance (particularly during a so-called torture sequence; she's not a great actress, though she was unexpectedly decent). I was actually-gasp!-impressed with Yates’ directorial approach for the first time since he helmed the films, and the conclusion felt resolved, even though I knew there was still so much more to go. It didn’t make up for his past unforgiveable flaws mistakes nor whitewashed Part 1’s flaws, but Part 1 gave me some hopes for Part 2.
What did I end up watching?
‘’What the f*** is this?!’’
It sounds bad. Underneath a mask of figurative exaggeration, it wasn’t that bad, not the worst of the Potter films made, but to say it frankly, it really could have been better-for the last film, obviously. It may be one of the best reviewed films of the year (no joke), but I really have to wonder about those critics… were we really watching the same movie? (The critics screening, no doubt, must have been filled with a bunch of Crabbes and Goyles.)
I’m not going to give a point-by-point dissection per scene of the film, but rather a non-linear jumble of thoughts rated best to worst to painful.
The Good:
Alexandre Freaking Desplat’s Amazing Score - (If there was nothing much else worthy about this film…) Desplat created my favourite Potter score, conveying human emotions while in stark contrast Williams’ imitated emotions with annoying trumpets (and yet Desplat was inspired by him). Only a genius mind as his would write and compose a piece as haunting as ‘’Lily’s Theme’’, beautifully vocalised by Joe Hisaishi’s daughter Mai Fujisawa. The original composition was so genius it could have done without the corporation of John Williams’ and Nicolas Hooper’s scores (because those guys are mediocre at best… oops). I can see this element with a potential film award. If Desplat is sadly overlooked, then every voting committee can just shove the whole of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry up their selective arseholes.
The Awesomeness that is Dame Maggie Smith - Shit is going down and she knows it. She can make a cheap knitting needle wand actually look threatening.
Warwick Davis - Didn’t you know? Little people are awesome. Only someone as versatile as Davis would get the privilege to play dual roles. The goblin make-up was technically brilliant.
The Gringotts Break-In and King’s Cross - Singularly the best whole scenes in the film. Largely every other scene had major flaws.
In Perspective:
The Casting
Enter Boardwalk Empire’s Kelly MacDonald - The greatest casting choice since Evanna Lych’s Luna Lovegood.
The Prince’s Tale and The Epilogue Kids - For as little screen time as the new generation of Potter kids had, they somehow fit their roles so well, and the filmmakers just had to select the adorable ones out of all the possible kids they could have picked.
'’Oh, you burst my bubble.’’
The Bad:
The Main Opening - After the ‘’Lily’s Theme’’ Prologue, the opening scenes at Shell Cottage were terribly weak: immediate jump in medias res without proper introduction, slow pace, and boring, unattractive dialogue which seemed more fitting for the middle of the movie. Anyone who’d just happen to walk into the movie without notice would think so. A sort of montage of images showing brief glimpses into the destruction of the wizarding society (or something) beforehand would have worked nicely. However, everything falls into place once the trio and Griphook leave the scene.
The Battle of Hogwarts - Narnia will forever put Harry Potter’s ‘’epic battle’’ to shame, unless a decent remake comes along and convinces me otherwise.
Compare?
Click to viewThe Pacing - Either too fast or too slow. I get the aim in action, but there was little to no flow from one event to the next. You had no time to grapple your mind over anything that was happening (or when given too much time, you didn’t know what to think), which is expected in a jump-by-jump war film, but even a decent war film gives the audience some time to relish in the moment. Thank Rowling this ended up being the shortest film in the series because I don’t think I could handle sitting through whole three hours of this.
The Characters of Ron and Hermione - What did they actually do in the whole two hours of the movie? Wasted oxygen on one or two Horcruxes; non-verbally confessed their serious love for one another and wasted more oxygen; snogged without oxygen; made future plans to make ginger-haired babies off-screen while wasting much more oxygen, what an accomplishment. And Nagini? They couldn’t even do that right. What a waste of oxygen. It only takes one to spawn hell…
Harry really could have done without their help, and the oxygen. Notice especially during Snape’s death scene… watching their statue-like reaction in the background is just too funny. They don’t even make the slightest effort to do anything, and waste tons of oxygen.
‘’Shit man, he’s going to die anyways. What does he need oxygen for?’’
‘’Shut the fuck up, Donny.’’
Ron, just don’t stand there and waste more oxygen than you already wasted when your best mate is about to be sacrificed… Ron, you do realise you may never see him again? Now you’re wasting valuable blinking space.
Too, nobody gives a flying damn about their emo-teenage romance, so the filmmakers and cast that dedicated one-third of the press junkets to the ‘’much anticipated Ronmione kiss’’ can stop wasting oxygen making it out to be the greatest sex-gig since Titanic. It was lame at best.
Harry and Ginny - Practically everything is wrong with this relationship. I just pretend it doesn’t exist. Oxygen snatchers, indeed. Quit wasting our air.
*Certain* Make-up & Hair - Snape had some serious distracting eyeliner going on, which didn’t help with his age. I don’t mind the movie people going for an ‘’Alice Cooper/Sweeney Todd’’ look, but it was applied in a way where you could literally tell he was wearing make-up (wonder much where Snape keeps it?). All I could focus on was that eyeliner and nothing else. And the wig looked horribly misplaced from the rest of Rickman’s features, more so than it ever has. Unnaturally longish, curly and froggish? Huge distraction.
The Costumes - What was Jany Temime thinking with that horrible brown jacket she made Harry wear? Too, Hermione’s wardrobe would have been less distracting without the equally horrible combination of the terribly contrasted pink hoodie and blue denim jacket. Talk about mood displacement. I also had a slight problem with Dumbledore and Snape’s wardrobes in The Prince’s Tale montage. What an effort, costume department, to make it look set 16 years prior, my the differences (more on this below).
Looks aside…
The Performances - The cast weren’t as shabby as they were during Mike Newell’s turn of Year 4, but all believability and credibility that was present in Part 1 (and certain previous films) was suddenly taken away. The trio in general was disappointing, when I thought they had finally pulled through in Part 1. Tom Felton is the most accomplished actor of the young cast, so I’ll exclude him and I was pleasantly impressed with Matthew Lewis’ small performance as Neville Longbottom. I have my two cents for Ralph Fiennes, but he wasn’t bad-he was worse (that’s further below).
This is getting to be lengthy. Part II is on the way...