Saw It!
WOW. That pretty much sums it up. Well, okay, I'm just dying to rant, so:
To end on a positive note, I'll start with the bad.
Dumbledore sucked. He got angry at Harry, agreed with Snape to let Harry compete so that they could use him as bait, spouted cliches about eternal glory, and didn't interact with Harry much at all. At one point he even says something like "I've never had much use for heroes." WTF??? Then he never gets his speech at the end--except to say remember Cedric--but he doesn't really explain what he's talking about. We don't see the scene where Harry tells him what happened, so there's the "enormously significant" gleam of triumph down the drain. We also don't get the confrontation between him and Fudge. How are they supposed to explain OotP then? Ooops, sorry, I know you thought Fudge liked Dumbledore, but now he hates him and is trying to take over Hogwarts... This is going to make HBP very hard to swallow too. We just don't have the character buildup between Dumbledore and Harry for the line "Dumbledore's man through and through" to be believable. And that line HAS to work. It's essential to Harry's character. Gah. When are they going to realize that Dumbledore's exposition is the frickin most important part of each book? Oh, and Dumbledore apologizes to Harry for "putting him in danger" at the end of the movie. ARRRRGGHHHHH! He didn't use Harry as bait!!!!! *jumps up and down in anger* What I want to know, is how someone with the "Dumbledore is a cruel manipulator" character reading ever got to direct the movies. That reading is out there, I just never expected it to be, ya know, accepted. Dumbledore HAD to let Harry participate, and he knew that Harry would probably be alright. The Goblet didn't allow for anyone to drop out. They said do numerous times. Even if he wanted to pull Harry out (which he probably did) he couldn't have. And anyway, Dumbledore doesn't screw up until book 5, keep your story straight. And even then, he screws up because he's trying to PROTECT Harry, not use him as bait. God. Whoever this old guy with the beard is, he's not Dumbledore. That's really sad, because up until GoF, it's not essential to have Dumbledore be perfect. But he is absolutely crucial to the plot's of 5 and especially 6. This random old guy is not going to be able to pull off the exposition scenes of those books. Because they HAVE to be there. There's no getting around it this time. How is Dumbledore going to switch from using Harry as bait, to crying over the fact that his overprotectiveness has caused Sirius' death???? Crap. Total Crap.
The innuendo caused several *facepalm* moments. There was Hagrid touching Madame Maxime's butt while they were dancing. (No, I'm not kidding. She even grabbed his hand off. You couldn't not notice.) There was Hermione in pink. AGAIN. There was the ridiculous dancing lesson for the stupid Yule Ball, which was funny but still annoyed the hell out of me because they could have used that time for CANON scenes. Remember canon?
Then, (Newell must have gone to the same Directing school as Peter Jackson) there was our hero dangling off of a high place and an added scene of drama that NEVER EXISTED.
But, overall I did enjoy the movie immensely.
The Voldemort scene was exceptional. That was the film's saving grace. That scene is what I went to see. Fiennes was astounding. Just enough of a mixture of evil, madness, and greed. Perfect. And the CGI to make his face was wonderful. He looked just creepy enough so that you could tell he wasn't all human anymore, but not quite weird enough to make him seem like caricature of a monster. The lines were good. They kept in the Cruciatus curse (poor Harry). I didn't like that a lot of Death Eaters were missing, however. And Wormtail said Bella's line. "Where is Bella?" the Sirius fans cry.
Radcliffe did a very good job in this film. You could really believe he was Harry Potter this time. Especially when Voldemort tells him that he wants to see the look on his face as he dies and he walks out to meet Voldemort, upright and proud, and says: "Have it your way." *shiver* It was soooo good. In that scene you really start to see Harry the hero emerge. Before he was a kid on adventures. It's more serious now. I think that's part of the reason why the ending dissatisfied me so much. You get a glimpse of Harry's strength and then... There's no scene where he has to work up the courage to tell everyone what has happened. And Dumbledore doesn't do his yearly summary of what Harry (and us) should have learned. The ending felt grim, but it didn't convey the same amount of fear, doubt, and courage in the face of it all that I fell it should have. Anyway, I digress.
The dragons were a seriously cool bit of CGI. You really had to keep reminding yourself that they weren't real.
All in all, great movie, just fire Michael Gambon, or write him better lines, or freaking make him act like Dumbledore. Just... something. He needs to be fixed by HBP or no one will care when his character dies.
note: re-posted from my dead blogger
To end on a positive note, I'll start with the bad.
Dumbledore sucked. He got angry at Harry, agreed with Snape to let Harry compete so that they could use him as bait, spouted cliches about eternal glory, and didn't interact with Harry much at all. At one point he even says something like "I've never had much use for heroes." WTF??? Then he never gets his speech at the end--except to say remember Cedric--but he doesn't really explain what he's talking about. We don't see the scene where Harry tells him what happened, so there's the "enormously significant" gleam of triumph down the drain. We also don't get the confrontation between him and Fudge. How are they supposed to explain OotP then? Ooops, sorry, I know you thought Fudge liked Dumbledore, but now he hates him and is trying to take over Hogwarts... This is going to make HBP very hard to swallow too. We just don't have the character buildup between Dumbledore and Harry for the line "Dumbledore's man through and through" to be believable. And that line HAS to work. It's essential to Harry's character. Gah. When are they going to realize that Dumbledore's exposition is the frickin most important part of each book? Oh, and Dumbledore apologizes to Harry for "putting him in danger" at the end of the movie. ARRRRGGHHHHH! He didn't use Harry as bait!!!!! *jumps up and down in anger* What I want to know, is how someone with the "Dumbledore is a cruel manipulator" character reading ever got to direct the movies. That reading is out there, I just never expected it to be, ya know, accepted. Dumbledore HAD to let Harry participate, and he knew that Harry would probably be alright. The Goblet didn't allow for anyone to drop out. They said do numerous times. Even if he wanted to pull Harry out (which he probably did) he couldn't have. And anyway, Dumbledore doesn't screw up until book 5, keep your story straight. And even then, he screws up because he's trying to PROTECT Harry, not use him as bait. God. Whoever this old guy with the beard is, he's not Dumbledore. That's really sad, because up until GoF, it's not essential to have Dumbledore be perfect. But he is absolutely crucial to the plot's of 5 and especially 6. This random old guy is not going to be able to pull off the exposition scenes of those books. Because they HAVE to be there. There's no getting around it this time. How is Dumbledore going to switch from using Harry as bait, to crying over the fact that his overprotectiveness has caused Sirius' death???? Crap. Total Crap.
The innuendo caused several *facepalm* moments. There was Hagrid touching Madame Maxime's butt while they were dancing. (No, I'm not kidding. She even grabbed his hand off. You couldn't not notice.) There was Hermione in pink. AGAIN. There was the ridiculous dancing lesson for the stupid Yule Ball, which was funny but still annoyed the hell out of me because they could have used that time for CANON scenes. Remember canon?
Then, (Newell must have gone to the same Directing school as Peter Jackson) there was our hero dangling off of a high place and an added scene of drama that NEVER EXISTED.
But, overall I did enjoy the movie immensely.
The Voldemort scene was exceptional. That was the film's saving grace. That scene is what I went to see. Fiennes was astounding. Just enough of a mixture of evil, madness, and greed. Perfect. And the CGI to make his face was wonderful. He looked just creepy enough so that you could tell he wasn't all human anymore, but not quite weird enough to make him seem like caricature of a monster. The lines were good. They kept in the Cruciatus curse (poor Harry). I didn't like that a lot of Death Eaters were missing, however. And Wormtail said Bella's line. "Where is Bella?" the Sirius fans cry.
Radcliffe did a very good job in this film. You could really believe he was Harry Potter this time. Especially when Voldemort tells him that he wants to see the look on his face as he dies and he walks out to meet Voldemort, upright and proud, and says: "Have it your way." *shiver* It was soooo good. In that scene you really start to see Harry the hero emerge. Before he was a kid on adventures. It's more serious now. I think that's part of the reason why the ending dissatisfied me so much. You get a glimpse of Harry's strength and then... There's no scene where he has to work up the courage to tell everyone what has happened. And Dumbledore doesn't do his yearly summary of what Harry (and us) should have learned. The ending felt grim, but it didn't convey the same amount of fear, doubt, and courage in the face of it all that I fell it should have. Anyway, I digress.
The dragons were a seriously cool bit of CGI. You really had to keep reminding yourself that they weren't real.
All in all, great movie, just fire Michael Gambon, or write him better lines, or freaking make him act like Dumbledore. Just... something. He needs to be fixed by HBP or no one will care when his character dies.
note: re-posted from my dead blogger