OotP Movie Review
My wife and I went to see the movie Thursday, dubious about the PG-13 rating, and just as dubious about the big-screen franchise after five iterations. I won't lie to you; I really hate Michael Gambon as Dumbledore and feel that they really botched his character when Richard Harris died. I also hated Hermione's character in the third and fourth films for a multitude of reasons. With all of this baggage, you'd think I wouldn't enjoy the movies, but you'd be wrong.
The fifth movie is markedly better because they minimized Dumbledore (probably because the plot did the minimizing for them), because they completely reigned in Hermione-Sue (*winks at Delylah*), and because Luna Lovegood stole the show. She was the best character in the whole movie. Evanna Lynch was perfect, capturing Luna's spacey-intelligence, and highlighting her support for Harry. After seeing this, I can see why there are so many Harry/Luna shippers out there!
A couple of other observations:
- The whole shaky camera thing while they flew to Grimmauld Place was dumb.
- What's with Dudley's accent? He sounded totally lame.
- And Vernon? He looked like he gained fifty pounds and lost half his hair. Add that to how Richard Griffiths completely botched his lines and I'm glad there's less of him than before.
- Arthur's hair? I can't decide what 'style' he was given by the studio hairdressers, but I was a little freaked out. He was completely perfect in PoA. What happened? At least his scene at Christmas was well done.
- Levicorpus. What the heck was that doing in OotP??? Completely pointless and steals from the title plot in the next film.
- Ginny's little looks when Harry and Cho are swapping swooping stomachs. Very nice touch.
- Speaking of Cho, they actually did a good job merging Marietta with her and resolving it with the Veritaserum twist at the end.
- Centaurs versus Umbridge = major satisfaction. Too bad there wasn't someone to goad her with clip-clop sounds. Ah, Dolores... how sweet it was to see you get your just desserts.
Did I mention that I hate Dumbledore? If he keeps up his grumpy grandpa routine in HBP, I'll cheer when Snape offs him. In the book, I was devastated, despite having seen it coming before I knew the book's title. Bye, bye second-rate, irate old man.
The fifth movie is markedly better because they minimized Dumbledore (probably because the plot did the minimizing for them), because they completely reigned in Hermione-Sue (*winks at Delylah*), and because Luna Lovegood stole the show. She was the best character in the whole movie. Evanna Lynch was perfect, capturing Luna's spacey-intelligence, and highlighting her support for Harry. After seeing this, I can see why there are so many Harry/Luna shippers out there!
A couple of other observations:
- The whole shaky camera thing while they flew to Grimmauld Place was dumb.
- What's with Dudley's accent? He sounded totally lame.
- And Vernon? He looked like he gained fifty pounds and lost half his hair. Add that to how Richard Griffiths completely botched his lines and I'm glad there's less of him than before.
- Arthur's hair? I can't decide what 'style' he was given by the studio hairdressers, but I was a little freaked out. He was completely perfect in PoA. What happened? At least his scene at Christmas was well done.
- Levicorpus. What the heck was that doing in OotP??? Completely pointless and steals from the title plot in the next film.
- Ginny's little looks when Harry and Cho are swapping swooping stomachs. Very nice touch.
- Speaking of Cho, they actually did a good job merging Marietta with her and resolving it with the Veritaserum twist at the end.
- Centaurs versus Umbridge = major satisfaction. Too bad there wasn't someone to goad her with clip-clop sounds. Ah, Dolores... how sweet it was to see you get your just desserts.
Did I mention that I hate Dumbledore? If he keeps up his grumpy grandpa routine in HBP, I'll cheer when Snape offs him. In the book, I was devastated, despite having seen it coming before I knew the book's title. Bye, bye second-rate, irate old man.