Monday, November 28, 2005

The New Harry Potter Movie

Thomas Hibbs had a review of sorts of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (it's also about the new Pride & Prejudice movie and how both relate to virtue) on NRO today. It reminded me I haven't posted about GoF, even though I saw it last Monday.

In a word, fantastic. Well, maybe that's a bit much, but it is really enjoyable and the special effects are great. The only disappointment in my moviegoing experience was that I didn't finish our Hogwarts house scarves beforehand so we could wear them to see the movie; that probably means I'm turning into a big old dork.

Some points:

  • The movie starts off with so many great-looking effects right in a row that I wondered for a split second if there'd be any story or if they just meant to distract us with special effects; there is a story and the film continues to look good.
  • This movie might be too scary for really young children, possibly even ones who've read the book; reading a book gives the individual some control over the imagery, whereas a movie can't. Also in one or two spots the movie is darker than the book; the most important is the changing of the Death Eater march after the World Cup.
  • They had to leave a lot out of this movie. There's no Dursleys, no Winkie, no House Elf Liberation Front. It makes me wonder how they'll fit all of The Order of the Phoenix in; one way, which I think we can safely say won't happen, would be doing it in two movies, part one and part two, like Kill Bill.
  • Anyone who hasn't read the books may be left slightly confused in one or two places, but over nothing major, unless the change in the Death Eater march made them think the DEs were already working with Voldemort.
  • They really should have made these movies faster. The kids are already looking too old for fourteen; with the next one scheduled for 2007, the kids definitely aren't going to look fifteen.
  • For the first time, their having cast a pretty girl in Hermione's part mattered. The scene at the ball, when people see Hermione and say she looks beautiful, loses most of its point if Hermione was pretty beforehand.
  • Dumbledore shouldn't have grabbed Harry like that, after the choosing of the champions. It was dramatic and the action would have been reasonable in most people, but it just wasn't Dumbledore, so it took me out of the movie for a moment.
  • This movie led to a new experience for me. The friend we saw GoF with had a question about one of the actors, so after the movie I was looking the answer up on Internet Movie Database and I saw the actor who played Krum was born in 1985. For a moment I felt like a dirty old lady. I'd been thinking Movie Krum was kind of hot. Sanity returned a moment later when I realized, appallingly recent birthdate or not, he's physically a man, so I'm not a pervert. But before this it had never occurred to me women could feel like the female equivalent of the dirty old man.

6 comments:

Dymphna said...

1985? That was the year I graduated from high school. I guess that makes me old...........

I thought the actress playing Fleur was too skinny and plain for the part.

Suzanne said...

Definitely too skinny for my tastes. They didn't make it clear she was part Veela either.

Anonymous said...

Cedric! NOOOOO!!!! That was my reaction when I read the book - I almost dropped the whole series right there because it was too morbid and upsetting. But I'm going to finish them, of course, even though I miss the lighthearted joy of the early books.

The movie Cedric haunted me when I tried to go to sleep that night. He was perfect. (How's that for dirty old lady?! He can't be much older than Krum, right? And yes, I thought Krum was hot - I'm 7 years older than he is, so I guess it's within the realm of reason. But he's younger than my youngest brother...)

Auntie Suzanne, if you're a dork, can I be a dork, too?

Suzanne said...

Writer78, I also wanted the series to stay lighthearted school fun when it first started getting darker. They were so fun even my mother-in-law, who usually hated anything fantasy-related, read the first book and enjoyed it; she said it reminded her of the things my husband and his cousins got up to as children. Of course now I'm used to the change and looking forward to seeing how it all resolves itself.

And I agree the movie Cedric looked really right for the part. I think Krum is hotter though; there's something about that big, still-waters-run-deep type. :-)

And the more dorks the merrier--or dorkier.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Krum has some (much) older brothers who can come be dorks with us... *sigh* - when did I get old??

Suzanne said...

I was probably born old, but I still wonder how I got *this* old.