I up and decided to go see the latest “Harry Potter” movie this afternoon. It was good, but not as good as the first two in my opinion. My observations follow.
First off the scene cuts were horrible… About a dozen too many keyhole wipes for anyones good.
I gather that this was a new director; well I suggest they bring back the old one. Sure, there was a decided sense of menace in the third installment with all of the dark scenes and erie sets, but it didn’t manage to even come close to the second movie.
I also disliked the rather disjointed flow of the film. Things that should have had far more screen time were glossed over and things that should have been a passing note were done in far too much depth…
There were also many, many loose ends in the film; such as Harry’s vision of the glowing buck on the far side of the pond which turns out to be him? Huh? If you’re not going to explain it, don’t show it… The first rule of screenwriting.
But enough gripes about the movie, one might think it sucks by my review so far.
It doesn’t suck, but it’s not as good as the first two either.
Some high points of the movie include the hippogryph, “Buckbeak”, which was very well done right down to taking a very horse-like dump as he’s being introduced to the audience. The animators for him must have really done their homework of raptor wings as they did a very good job there as well.
The dementors are well done too, but you can tell the animators are using Buckbeak to beta the bodies for the centaurs and whatnot that figure highly in the next few stories by the level of detail used.
The new Dumbledorf does a very good job too, though he’s considerably more animated and mobile in comparison to the old Head Master. He’s just as puzzling and obviously more than he seems though.
Well, that about does it for my review of “The Prisoner of Azkaban”. All in all it’s worth the $10.
