Harry Potter
I haven't been very passionate about Harry Potter since I read the last book, but I must admit I enjoyed the "Order of the Phoenix" film with fangirlish glee.
Mostly it was due to being in a large, crowded room full of people who had the same emotional responses as I did to the film. We all laughed, groaned, and giggled in unison, and that's frankly a very enjoyable collective experience. Much like in the early years of cinema, where people in the cinema ate loudly, screamed insults at the villain and threw popcorn everytime he appeared. That collective response, I think, was the most enjoyable and the most successful part of the film.
Everything else was as usual: the action within the film is mostly coherent, but the scenes are only vaguely related with each other. Despite the obvious efforts of the director, who overused the typical "fading into the next scene" image and joined the scenes through lines of dialogue, the scenes still seem like scrap pieces taken from the book joined together without a fluid connection. Most of it seems rushed, to me.
The three main actors are still horrible and unconvincing in their acting, although my irrational dislike of Emma Watson made her scarce improvement less obvious for me. I did enjoy Luna (who played her?), McGonagall and Snape. I have come to like Alan Rickman's Snape, even though he has never coincided with my mental image of the character. Michael Gambon still doesn't look very Dumbledore-ish, I have to say. He looks fat and incompetent. Umbridge looked a little too false for me, but that's perhaps the essence of the character. And I just hate Emma Thompson. Maybe I got this thing about Emmas, I don't know.
Oh, but Natalia Tena (Tonks)? I'm in love.
I loved the flying scenes, as always, and I particularly enjoyed the too-brief flashbacks of Snape's past.
Young Snape is quite nice, actually, in a way only people like me would find attractive. I loved the Ministry of Magic, although I was a bit disappointed by the Department of Mysteries, and even more so by the exclusion of St. Mungo's and the Room with the Brains. Oh, but Umbridge's office? A delightfully horrible depiction; just as I had pictured it.
So: the film is entertaining but not very good. No big surprise there.
I'm afraid the surprises might come in a few week's time. The film has got be a little back in the fandom, but I still dread the coming of the last book. Because, in my mind, it will be either a great, exciting, gut-churning book, or a terrible, gut-churning mess. Honestly, I'm not in much of a hurry for the book to come out.
Mostly it was due to being in a large, crowded room full of people who had the same emotional responses as I did to the film. We all laughed, groaned, and giggled in unison, and that's frankly a very enjoyable collective experience. Much like in the early years of cinema, where people in the cinema ate loudly, screamed insults at the villain and threw popcorn everytime he appeared. That collective response, I think, was the most enjoyable and the most successful part of the film.
Everything else was as usual: the action within the film is mostly coherent, but the scenes are only vaguely related with each other. Despite the obvious efforts of the director, who overused the typical "fading into the next scene" image and joined the scenes through lines of dialogue, the scenes still seem like scrap pieces taken from the book joined together without a fluid connection. Most of it seems rushed, to me.
The three main actors are still horrible and unconvincing in their acting, although my irrational dislike of Emma Watson made her scarce improvement less obvious for me. I did enjoy Luna (who played her?), McGonagall and Snape. I have come to like Alan Rickman's Snape, even though he has never coincided with my mental image of the character. Michael Gambon still doesn't look very Dumbledore-ish, I have to say. He looks fat and incompetent. Umbridge looked a little too false for me, but that's perhaps the essence of the character. And I just hate Emma Thompson. Maybe I got this thing about Emmas, I don't know.
Oh, but Natalia Tena (Tonks)? I'm in love.
I loved the flying scenes, as always, and I particularly enjoyed the too-brief flashbacks of Snape's past.
Young Snape is quite nice, actually, in a way only people like me would find attractive. I loved the Ministry of Magic, although I was a bit disappointed by the Department of Mysteries, and even more so by the exclusion of St. Mungo's and the Room with the Brains. Oh, but Umbridge's office? A delightfully horrible depiction; just as I had pictured it.
So: the film is entertaining but not very good. No big surprise there.
I'm afraid the surprises might come in a few week's time. The film has got be a little back in the fandom, but I still dread the coming of the last book. Because, in my mind, it will be either a great, exciting, gut-churning book, or a terrible, gut-churning mess. Honestly, I'm not in much of a hurry for the book to come out.