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I just got back from a midnight screening and I have a few thoughts I'd like to share with you. This isn't going to be a standard review in some nice paragraph format with arguments and conclusions and all that nonsense - rather I'm going to bullet-point some thoughts I had and open the floor to discussion.
- 1 -
Alright, why the hell does Harry go through the exact same character development in every movie? I mean seriously, I'm getting tired of this. Every fall the daft fool seems to forget all the lessons he learned in the previous year as he reverts into an insecure petulant brat who lies to his friends and give in to his "the fate of the world is resting on me so I'd better just wallow and make things more difficult for everyone" schtick. Then throughout the fall things get worse and worse until suddenly there's snow on the ground and all his friends hate him. Then something happens, he remembers not to act like a dick, the good guys rally, Harry learns the meaning of sacrifice and in the end stares boldly into an uncertain future, ready for any challenge - except, apparently, minor teasing from his fat cousin.
- 2 -
I loved the way the administration controlled the press and framed the political discourse. My favorite newspaper headline was "Dumbledore: Daft or Dangerous?" I felt like it came right from a FOX News ticker. The media reported government press releases as fact, and this became an issue when it became clear that they weren't facts.
- 3 -
Tonks is hott, I'm with Adam on this one. She needed more screen time. There was an odd older-woman sexual tension briefly at the start of the film between her and Harry but then she tripped and fell and basically left the movie. Boo.
- 4 -
The final big fight between the various members of the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters was pretty damn impressive. Harry makes it a point to tell the other students earlier that all great wizards and witches started out as students, just like them - he is teaching them the basics, and they become more powerful but they're clumsy and impressed with themselves. In the end, there's a big fight between grownup wizards - and it's really just pretty neat. You can see how the sort of training the kids were doing was a foundation, but the adults are at a level so far beyond it - everyone is fast, confident, impressive instead of impressed. It was one of the highlights of the film for me to watch that skirmish.
- 5 -
Dolores Umbridge - yes, ok, we get it, she's a self-righteous neo-victorian @!$%# determined to stamp out all that is good and worthwhile about childhood. She is also a sadist, her disciplinarian exterior masking a vindictive soul who enjoys tormenting others. She is unpleasant to watch. Why did she get so god damned much screen time? Especially when Tonks got so little? I mean, yes, I understand that it was important to show that Hogwarts was suffering under an authoritarian oppression - but for @!$%#'s sake establish it and move on. I would have loved to see a quidditch match or some little sequence in magic town in place of one or two of her scenes.
- 6 -
"The Muggle Prime Minister has been alerted..." It's interesting to me that in this movie we begin to see some interactions between magic world and muggle world. I know the books went down this road a little bit, I'd like to see a bit more.
- 7 -
Fred and George are great.
- 8 -
Kids who are growing up with these books and movies are going to be exposed to some radical concepts - it's good to question authority, your best friend could die tomorrow, good and evil aren't absolutes, life is suffering, not even Dumbledore knows all the answers. I am genuinely excited at the idea that an entire generation is going to be raised with so many genuinely complex lessons so painstakingly available. Harry Potter can be simplistic at times, but it's never simple - there are lots of subtexts and the story, no matter how it finally ends, is fundamentally a tragedy. Life is hard, life is temporary and you can't count on anything except maybe your friends unless you act like a dick and alienate them or they die - and every year you have to deal with more complex issues.
- 9 -
Poor Cho, her character must feel so used by JK Rowling and the movie people. She's just there for a good snog and then it's bye bye? Ah well, at least next year Harry gets to make out with Ginny left right and center. I wonder how Ron's gonna react to that?
That's all I got, it's 3am and I need sleep. But I wanted to let ya'll know that the film is worth seeing. It's easily the darkest of the movies so far, and while it falls into the standard series pitfalls (come on, harry, you already learned that lesson in 1st 2nd and 4th grades...) it also offers us some compelling details. Harry is depressed and alone for much of the film, and if that seems unpleasant it's because it is.
I'm looking forward to the last book.
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