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OMG! Let me be the first on this thread to say that the actress who plays Moaning Myrtle is really OLD! Has nobody else noticed this?
Ahem. Sorry.
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Saw this last night, and was reminded just what a shitty, shitty, awful novel it was. Based on that, Mike Newell's done a decent job of making a film that didn't actively make me want to hide in my own caecum. Major problem, I think, was that even with the excision of vast quanitities of plot - SPEW, most obviously, and the stripping down of others heavily - why were the Death Eaters marauding at the Quidditch World Cup? There's a suggestion that Barty Jr. has lead them, but to what end? Do they or do they not know that Voldemort is back? The compression also makes the Moody/Crouch hing yet more ludicrous, along with the trial, - veritaserum, dudes, veritaserum. None of the ancillary characters had the screen time to be fleshed out. This had its greatest failing in Crouch/Moody - it's difficult to work out on the clues available what's going on if you haven't read the book, but also why is it of interest? Moody doesn't have the paternal build-up with Harry (yes, Harry, we've got you yet another evanescent father figure. It's the least we could do after what happened to the last one...), and Crouch Jr. has so little screen time (during which he is taken down like my niece by the actual Moody) that there's no real sense that he _is_ anyone apart from the 10th Doctor. It's a failing of the book as well, but is particularly pronounced here. Same with Cedric - he's a bland Head Boy figure in the book, which is escalated in the film because there is even less of him. There's a general lack of villain about the villains - Spall is miscast, Fiennes hammy - Tennant's the best and by extension the most underused. Great suit, too. Isaacs solid again in a cameo role,but it does make you wonder why he isn't in charge.
On the plus side, the SFX were very cool, although the Black Lake scene had the feeling of an NVidia tech demo. I really enjoyed the party, partly for the Wyrd Sisters but also because it did have the feel at the death of the emotional fallout of a school disco. Cho Chan surprised me by having any features whatver, and turned in a likeable if again infinitesimal performance. Amdram though the confrontation was, the preamble - the maze genuinely spooky - and the aftermath - raining, miserable, washed-out, the way that as they return everybody starts clapping - were both nicely done. Grint and Watson didn't have much range, but I really like what they're both doing with their characters.
Given that most of the problems wiht GoF as a film came from the hugeness and overstuffing of the book, leading to lots of good set-pieces rather than a good movie, God knows what's going to happen with Order of the Penix. Dark and difficult-to-film times lie ahead.
Also, ferret. Ferret! |
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