A (Tardy) Bitter Rant to Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Part III)
Hopefully the last part.
Edit: The last part.
The Ugly:
Yates’ Poor Mimicking of Human Emotions - Too much hugging going around. I may vomit.
The Cinematography - Not strictly focusing on the just the colour palette and the lighting, the choice in camera angles subtracted from the atmosphere and didn’t do it for me, particularly during the battle sequences and major death scenes (Fred, Lupin, Tonks, Snape). May I elaborate?
For instance, Snape’s death scene was so weirdly shot, from the extreme close-ups zeroed in on Snape’s head (just his head and nothing beyond that, even in the foreground they couldn’t make an effort to show his entire body, but no just a floating head, that’s all we’re going to get is a floating head); to the out of position close-ups of Harry’s face looking… somewhere (‘’Harry, are you supposed to be looking at Snape? I can’t tell because you’re looking sideways into the camera lens.’’); to the out-of-focus shot of Hermione and Ron in the background; to the lack of a burning Hogwarts outside the glass, you tell me where the atmosphere went, if it was ever there to begin with.
‘’Ah, where indeed?’'
It probably would have looked better in sharp focus. Another scene that was meant to produce emotions fell short of achievement, not due to the acting, but because of the poor camera shots, where nearly every camera shot in this film was badly zeroed in.
Daily rushes, anyone? At least there’s a body.
The awkward camera angles throughout this film and lack of atmosphere made this film nearly unwatchable. There was hardly any flow to the storytelling. Good storytelling varies camera angles. I was not a huge fan of this cinematographer’s work here. It pales in comparison to Half-Blood Prince’s cinematography.
The Plainly Painful:
Ralph Fiennes’ Performance - If hearing me talk crap about Rickman’s disappointing wooden ‘’Always’’ was torture enough, wait until you hear what I have to dish out for Fiennes. He’s one of my favourite actors, though his portrayal of Voldemort through the years was never quite satisfying (the only reason why I think the filmmakers cast him was because of Schindler’s List), yet he was by far worse than usual in this film. In brief, I couldn’t take him seriously, frank as that. He was actually-gasp!-the worst in the cast. His delivery of his lines (i.e. ‘’Avada Kedavra!’’) was painfully cringe-worthy, and Voldemort laughing?
Giving free hugs?
Please, check yourself into a stand-up comedian show. Maybe someone there would actually take you seriously. And the cast actually found him chilling on the set? You must be joking.
The Supposed-To-Be-Comical Throw-Back One-Liners - Kloves was trying to write like the Coen Brothers and it just didn’t work. It ruined the mood of the film and seemed out of character to whoever was saying the lines.
May I?
‘’I always wanted to use that spell!’’ Girl, for real?
Alan Rickman and His Pregnant Pauses - (His performance during the interrogation scene was good overall, except there was a downside.) It wasn’t bad enough to be bad. It was beyond hilariously cringe-worthy. In some of the previous films, his pauses carried dramatic effect and I really enjoyed them. In this film, he overdid the pauses, not just between words but between syllables (‘’E-q-ual-ly guil-ty.’’ *cringe*), to the point of painful inferno. I couldn’t take his drunken speech defect seriously. You’ll ‘’hang on every word’’ alright.
In Perspective:
The Ending
Everything after the King’s Cross sequence (where Michael Gambon’s acting went back to being enjoyable, strange enough; I can’t reason with Yates’ directing) was so painful and poorly done my mind drifted off somewhere to limbo during the last several minutes (I still can’t watch anything in that time frame from beginning to end; my focus is horrendous). It obviously wasn’t gripping enough to keep me interested. At least, the final duel between Harry and Voldemort didn’t involve Harry literally talking Voldemort to death, but it was too similarly repetitive of Goblet of Fire, which I didn’t much care for. Yet, it did include Harry giving Voldemort a farewell ‘’hug,’’ how touching.
‘’You jump, I jump.’’
Which is worse? Either one, cringe.
Furthermore, the film could have done without the Epilogue, which was just as melted with mozzarella as it was in the book, a troll-smuggled bad fan fiction. The new generation of Potter kids were nothing short of adorable (and did look like the Trio’s offspring), but (here I go again with Yates’ poor take on emotional scenes) what was meant to be felt by this scene I didn’t feel at all. It just felt… forced, more or less. As a side dish, Ginny and Hermione barely looked aged. They looked like teen mums, with wrinkles.
(Warning: More cringing to do at the horror that is the closing shot.)
Here we go: Cringe.
It wasn’t the worst of the Potter films (I give that to Yates’ Year-5-Ultimate-Directing-Fail, followed closely by Newell’s Year-4-That-Should-Have-Never-Happened), but it certainly wasn’t the best. (Hell, after the first three approximately, haven’t the films rather been disappointing as films if not adaptations?) I may have been expecting better, after a fresh opening act. Would I recommend this film? If you want to have a good laugh at the flaws, but mind the ending.
‘’Fuck it, dude. Let’s go bowling.’’
Edit: The last part.
The Ugly:
Yates’ Poor Mimicking of Human Emotions - Too much hugging going around. I may vomit.
The Cinematography - Not strictly focusing on the just the colour palette and the lighting, the choice in camera angles subtracted from the atmosphere and didn’t do it for me, particularly during the battle sequences and major death scenes (Fred, Lupin, Tonks, Snape). May I elaborate?
For instance, Snape’s death scene was so weirdly shot, from the extreme close-ups zeroed in on Snape’s head (just his head and nothing beyond that, even in the foreground they couldn’t make an effort to show his entire body, but no just a floating head, that’s all we’re going to get is a floating head); to the out of position close-ups of Harry’s face looking… somewhere (‘’Harry, are you supposed to be looking at Snape? I can’t tell because you’re looking sideways into the camera lens.’’); to the out-of-focus shot of Hermione and Ron in the background; to the lack of a burning Hogwarts outside the glass, you tell me where the atmosphere went, if it was ever there to begin with.
‘’Ah, where indeed?’'
It probably would have looked better in sharp focus. Another scene that was meant to produce emotions fell short of achievement, not due to the acting, but because of the poor camera shots, where nearly every camera shot in this film was badly zeroed in.
Daily rushes, anyone? At least there’s a body.
The awkward camera angles throughout this film and lack of atmosphere made this film nearly unwatchable. There was hardly any flow to the storytelling. Good storytelling varies camera angles. I was not a huge fan of this cinematographer’s work here. It pales in comparison to Half-Blood Prince’s cinematography.
The Plainly Painful:
Ralph Fiennes’ Performance - If hearing me talk crap about Rickman’s disappointing wooden ‘’Always’’ was torture enough, wait until you hear what I have to dish out for Fiennes. He’s one of my favourite actors, though his portrayal of Voldemort through the years was never quite satisfying (the only reason why I think the filmmakers cast him was because of Schindler’s List), yet he was by far worse than usual in this film. In brief, I couldn’t take him seriously, frank as that. He was actually-gasp!-the worst in the cast. His delivery of his lines (i.e. ‘’Avada Kedavra!’’) was painfully cringe-worthy, and Voldemort laughing?
Giving free hugs?
Please, check yourself into a stand-up comedian show. Maybe someone there would actually take you seriously. And the cast actually found him chilling on the set? You must be joking.
The Supposed-To-Be-Comical Throw-Back One-Liners - Kloves was trying to write like the Coen Brothers and it just didn’t work. It ruined the mood of the film and seemed out of character to whoever was saying the lines.
May I?
‘’I always wanted to use that spell!’’ Girl, for real?
Alan Rickman and His Pregnant Pauses - (His performance during the interrogation scene was good overall, except there was a downside.) It wasn’t bad enough to be bad. It was beyond hilariously cringe-worthy. In some of the previous films, his pauses carried dramatic effect and I really enjoyed them. In this film, he overdid the pauses, not just between words but between syllables (‘’E-q-ual-ly guil-ty.’’ *cringe*), to the point of painful inferno. I couldn’t take his drunken speech defect seriously. You’ll ‘’hang on every word’’ alright.
In Perspective:
The Ending
Everything after the King’s Cross sequence (where Michael Gambon’s acting went back to being enjoyable, strange enough; I can’t reason with Yates’ directing) was so painful and poorly done my mind drifted off somewhere to limbo during the last several minutes (I still can’t watch anything in that time frame from beginning to end; my focus is horrendous). It obviously wasn’t gripping enough to keep me interested. At least, the final duel between Harry and Voldemort didn’t involve Harry literally talking Voldemort to death, but it was too similarly repetitive of Goblet of Fire, which I didn’t much care for. Yet, it did include Harry giving Voldemort a farewell ‘’hug,’’ how touching.
‘’You jump, I jump.’’
Which is worse? Either one, cringe.
Furthermore, the film could have done without the Epilogue, which was just as melted with mozzarella as it was in the book, a troll-smuggled bad fan fiction. The new generation of Potter kids were nothing short of adorable (and did look like the Trio’s offspring), but (here I go again with Yates’ poor take on emotional scenes) what was meant to be felt by this scene I didn’t feel at all. It just felt… forced, more or less. As a side dish, Ginny and Hermione barely looked aged. They looked like teen mums, with wrinkles.
(Warning: More cringing to do at the horror that is the closing shot.)
Here we go: Cringe.
It wasn’t the worst of the Potter films (I give that to Yates’ Year-5-Ultimate-Directing-Fail, followed closely by Newell’s Year-4-That-Should-Have-Never-Happened), but it certainly wasn’t the best. (Hell, after the first three approximately, haven’t the films rather been disappointing as films if not adaptations?) I may have been expecting better, after a fresh opening act. Would I recommend this film? If you want to have a good laugh at the flaws, but mind the ending.
‘’Fuck it, dude. Let’s go bowling.’’