Post by 1stAgent on Jul 16, 2009 23:16:02 GMT -5
In an effort to kickstart the Renee board, here's my thoughts on the latest movie about those blokes in that British private school of magic. It's worth mentioning that when all this MST business started, I didn't know a lick about Harry Potter other than that it involved a school of magic. Likewise, I haven't read a paragraph of the books, and refuse to do so until MST is completed (and judging by the size of them, possibly afterwards as well). So it's nice to see the story unfold and compare and contrast the elements.
I've always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Harry Potter series. I love the world that was created and I love the characters in it and the general course of events that have unfolded. In that regard, the movie's fantastic as a "darkest before the dawn" moment that always proceeds the final act of any good story. When the focus was solely on the primary plot, it was incredible. Save for my eternal frustration with the endless loophole and anti-climaxes spurned by the killing curse (that's now three straight endings punctured by it; at least this one was heavily telegraphed), the ending was amazing. For all the talk about the big omissions from the last chapters of the book, it's clear why they were left out: they interfered with the flow.
That interfering with the flow thing is the big problem with the middle of the movie. The whole relationship subplots are cute, but given the magnitude of what's going on around them, it's hard not to wonder why they're given all this attention. If there's a point to be made regarding their characters, it can be done in far less screen time invested here (I had a similar problem with this in the fourth movie). There's a buildup to this tremendous war; I honestly don't care who Ron or Ginny are snogging. I've come to realize that characters like Lavender and Cormac are part of the reason Marie is such a surprisingly popular character in MST: she's not a two-dimensional throwaway solely there to make someone jealous.
I'm not a fan of beating-around-the-bush scenarios; they're too easy and too emotionally manipulative. The Ron and Hermoine thing really should have been settled by now, particularly when you see how settled Harry and Hermoine are around each other. And Ginny seems to have all the depth of a token romantic interest in a cheap comedy or action movie: she's there because the main character's gotta hook up with somebody. Since she's barely in the third and fourth movie, with only light hints of romance in two and five, it's hard to really pull for Harry and Ginny. Speaking of Ginny, whatever happened to "once you go black, you never go back?"
I loved seeing Draco actually get a sizable role in this movie, but that might stem from my frustration of him being a trite bully in the first movie and an utter waste in the next four. Shame they couldn't have told us anything about him in the first five movies (namely his actual moral code), otherwise we might have been able to better appreciate what he was angsting about all the time.
It's a very good movie, but suffers from the same problem as Goblet of Fire: unnecessary fluff pulls you farther away from the gravitas than it should. Thankfully, this proves to be better than Goblet in giving us time to soak in and appreciate the ending.
I've always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Harry Potter series. I love the world that was created and I love the characters in it and the general course of events that have unfolded. In that regard, the movie's fantastic as a "darkest before the dawn" moment that always proceeds the final act of any good story. When the focus was solely on the primary plot, it was incredible. Save for my eternal frustration with the endless loophole and anti-climaxes spurned by the killing curse (that's now three straight endings punctured by it; at least this one was heavily telegraphed), the ending was amazing. For all the talk about the big omissions from the last chapters of the book, it's clear why they were left out: they interfered with the flow.
That interfering with the flow thing is the big problem with the middle of the movie. The whole relationship subplots are cute, but given the magnitude of what's going on around them, it's hard not to wonder why they're given all this attention. If there's a point to be made regarding their characters, it can be done in far less screen time invested here (I had a similar problem with this in the fourth movie). There's a buildup to this tremendous war; I honestly don't care who Ron or Ginny are snogging. I've come to realize that characters like Lavender and Cormac are part of the reason Marie is such a surprisingly popular character in MST: she's not a two-dimensional throwaway solely there to make someone jealous.
I'm not a fan of beating-around-the-bush scenarios; they're too easy and too emotionally manipulative. The Ron and Hermoine thing really should have been settled by now, particularly when you see how settled Harry and Hermoine are around each other. And Ginny seems to have all the depth of a token romantic interest in a cheap comedy or action movie: she's there because the main character's gotta hook up with somebody. Since she's barely in the third and fourth movie, with only light hints of romance in two and five, it's hard to really pull for Harry and Ginny. Speaking of Ginny, whatever happened to "once you go black, you never go back?"
I loved seeing Draco actually get a sizable role in this movie, but that might stem from my frustration of him being a trite bully in the first movie and an utter waste in the next four. Shame they couldn't have told us anything about him in the first five movies (namely his actual moral code), otherwise we might have been able to better appreciate what he was angsting about all the time.
It's a very good movie, but suffers from the same problem as Goblet of Fire: unnecessary fluff pulls you farther away from the gravitas than it should. Thankfully, this proves to be better than Goblet in giving us time to soak in and appreciate the ending.