ellsworth81
06-07-2004, 07:01 AM
Harry Potter's Spell of Success Finally Fizzles
For the past 4 years, J.K. Rowling has delighted the world with her tales of the incorrigible boy wizard. I never read them of course because for hard-core geeks who had grown up on Dungeons and Dragons and its ilk, Harry Potter was kids’ stuff. But after watching the first movie, I realized that Rowling had created an ambitiously compelling world as rich as Tolkien’s very own Middle Earth. Then, I viewed the second movie where the movie started upon a darker, grimmer road that was wholly unexpected from what I had foreseen to be a Goonies-like adventure except with magic and mythical creatures. Naturally, I enjoyed the second film more than the first, and needless to say I was relatively elated when I heard news of an impending third movie. I waited with abated breath for the movie that would’ve been my “Empire Strikes Back” of the movie franchise.
But now, having finally watched the third movie, I have my own news to report. There's bad news. And then there's worse news. I’ll start with the bad news. It will be another slow year in summer movies. Now for the worst news. Despite the usual crop of testosterone-laden action flicks and summer romance brain-drains, Harry Potter's third installment could not prove that the third time was, indeed a charm.
After sitting in the theater for more than 40 minutes with a spellbound (pun intended) audience, I realized that to my horror some force as evil and malicious as Lord Voldemort himself managed to corrupt a brilliant movie franchise and reduce it to a high budget C.S. Lewis creation. And unlike the super-fans dressed to the nines in Harry Potter costumes, I did not let the smoke and mirrors so often employed by the shall-we-say less savory magicians cloud my vision.
Unfortunately, the following hour and a half did not progress much better. As with other colossal disappointments of the year, the story gets stuck in a mire of boredom, slogging through non-sequitur after non-sequitur with a brutally slow pace. The flow from scene to scene was as poor as that of the blood flow in Bob Dole’s wang.
With some thinking though, I pieced together that the movie-makers were trying to build up to the point that Harry Potter flirts with his dark side as he proclaims that he will kill Sirius Black for what he had done to his parents. With the contrived grin of satisfaction and quivering lip, I actually wondered if Potter had a chance to be our generation's Luke Skywalker.
But as you’ll find out (if you watch this movie), that would be impossible, for the movie-makers revealed much too early and without preparation that Darth Vader was indeed Luke’s father. The same man that played Dracula, Zorg (in Fifth Element), the psychotic policeman (in The Professional), and the lead terrorist (in Air Force One) was not going to amaze us with his delicious evilness. In fact, not only was he a good guy, but he had about 10 minutes total of screen time. But to the movie-makers credit, they did well in recruiting Gary Oldman, the perennial villain and psycho of Hollywood movies. He had brought some legitimacy with him to the Harry Potter franchise being cast as Sirius Black, but in the end, he was horribly under-utilized.
And in an attempt to not be a complete hater, the movie was shot beautifully and well produced as always with the lush scenery and a meticulous attention to minor detail. And the random innuendos, pubescent tomfoolery, and Daniel Radcliffe’s Barry White-like voice were an amusing quirk in bringing out their coming of age. And the returning actors and actresses reprised their roles well with the exception of the new, unusually peppy Professor Dumbledorr (the sage-like actor before this one had passed away recently).
With three movies and five books now, Harry Potter and his band of misfits are all grown up. But somewhere down the road, the movie makers forgot that we had aged along with them, resulting in a disastrously underdeveloped, underwhelming production. So, I caution you to take all the critics’ exhortation of this movie as the “best yet” with a grain of salt and to watch at your own risk as this movie serves mostly as a distracting side story that does little to advance the main plot or highlight any significant character growth.
For the past 4 years, J.K. Rowling has delighted the world with her tales of the incorrigible boy wizard. I never read them of course because for hard-core geeks who had grown up on Dungeons and Dragons and its ilk, Harry Potter was kids’ stuff. But after watching the first movie, I realized that Rowling had created an ambitiously compelling world as rich as Tolkien’s very own Middle Earth. Then, I viewed the second movie where the movie started upon a darker, grimmer road that was wholly unexpected from what I had foreseen to be a Goonies-like adventure except with magic and mythical creatures. Naturally, I enjoyed the second film more than the first, and needless to say I was relatively elated when I heard news of an impending third movie. I waited with abated breath for the movie that would’ve been my “Empire Strikes Back” of the movie franchise.
But now, having finally watched the third movie, I have my own news to report. There's bad news. And then there's worse news. I’ll start with the bad news. It will be another slow year in summer movies. Now for the worst news. Despite the usual crop of testosterone-laden action flicks and summer romance brain-drains, Harry Potter's third installment could not prove that the third time was, indeed a charm.
After sitting in the theater for more than 40 minutes with a spellbound (pun intended) audience, I realized that to my horror some force as evil and malicious as Lord Voldemort himself managed to corrupt a brilliant movie franchise and reduce it to a high budget C.S. Lewis creation. And unlike the super-fans dressed to the nines in Harry Potter costumes, I did not let the smoke and mirrors so often employed by the shall-we-say less savory magicians cloud my vision.
Unfortunately, the following hour and a half did not progress much better. As with other colossal disappointments of the year, the story gets stuck in a mire of boredom, slogging through non-sequitur after non-sequitur with a brutally slow pace. The flow from scene to scene was as poor as that of the blood flow in Bob Dole’s wang.
With some thinking though, I pieced together that the movie-makers were trying to build up to the point that Harry Potter flirts with his dark side as he proclaims that he will kill Sirius Black for what he had done to his parents. With the contrived grin of satisfaction and quivering lip, I actually wondered if Potter had a chance to be our generation's Luke Skywalker.
But as you’ll find out (if you watch this movie), that would be impossible, for the movie-makers revealed much too early and without preparation that Darth Vader was indeed Luke’s father. The same man that played Dracula, Zorg (in Fifth Element), the psychotic policeman (in The Professional), and the lead terrorist (in Air Force One) was not going to amaze us with his delicious evilness. In fact, not only was he a good guy, but he had about 10 minutes total of screen time. But to the movie-makers credit, they did well in recruiting Gary Oldman, the perennial villain and psycho of Hollywood movies. He had brought some legitimacy with him to the Harry Potter franchise being cast as Sirius Black, but in the end, he was horribly under-utilized.
And in an attempt to not be a complete hater, the movie was shot beautifully and well produced as always with the lush scenery and a meticulous attention to minor detail. And the random innuendos, pubescent tomfoolery, and Daniel Radcliffe’s Barry White-like voice were an amusing quirk in bringing out their coming of age. And the returning actors and actresses reprised their roles well with the exception of the new, unusually peppy Professor Dumbledorr (the sage-like actor before this one had passed away recently).
With three movies and five books now, Harry Potter and his band of misfits are all grown up. But somewhere down the road, the movie makers forgot that we had aged along with them, resulting in a disastrously underdeveloped, underwhelming production. So, I caution you to take all the critics’ exhortation of this movie as the “best yet” with a grain of salt and to watch at your own risk as this movie serves mostly as a distracting side story that does little to advance the main plot or highlight any significant character growth.