Date- Sunday November 11 2018
Time- 11:35am
Location- Cinemark at Stroud Mall
Party- 2 (my mom and I)
Director: David Yates
Writer (book AND screenplay): J.K. Rowling
Composer: James Newton Howard
Returning Cast:
Newt Scamander- Eddie Redmayne
Jacob Kowalski- Dan Fogler
Tina- Katherine Waterston
Queenie- Alison Sudol
Credence- Ezra Miller
young Grindewald- Jamie Campbell Bower
Newcomers:
Grindlewald- Johnny Depp
Theseus Scamander, Newt's older brother- Callum Turner
Nicholas Flamel- Brontis Jodorowsky
Nagini- Claudia Kim
Albus Dumbledore- Jude Law
Leta Lestrange- Zoë Kravitz
Duration: 134 minutes (+8 trailers)
Write-up:
Opening Remarks
There was a bit of hype leading up to this movie... at least among Harry Potter fans. First off because it's another of the series. And it also includes a younger Dumbledore and shows some scenes at Hogwarts. It's somewhat of a homecoming, even though it's only for a few short scenes, including some flashbacks.
The theater was kinda empty at first, but it quickly filled up in that half hour we were sitting there. And it got pretty quiet once the movie started... but we also had to get through tons of commercials and trailers first.
Trailers:
I'd been saying the last few posts that 7 seems to be a common number because it's happened several movies in a row... well, we finally broke the pattern and got one extra trailer. Are any of them worth seeing? ...not really sure. I was expecting a lot of repeats from previous theater trips, but only one repeated.
And it was the "Kid who would be King"- where a bullied 12 year old in private school pulls the sword from the stone and it brings all kinds of monsters (and Morgana) from Camelot into modern day England and they have to fight them.
As for the other 7:
"The Secret Life of Pets 2"- a teaser trailer, really... Leonard the poodle is left at home again and as soon as his master leaves, a dance party ensues with tons of other dogs. And there's this little Chihuahua tries to put on Copacabana and it falls on deaf ears.
(Have yet to see the first one, but I'd like to at some point)
"Mortal Engines"- funny how quickly this trailer started circulating... we saw it and when we got home, it came on multiple times. It's directed by Peter Jackson (of the LOTR/Hobbit franchises) and it looks like his work... really huge visual effects. What I gather is that it's a post apocalyptic story about cities becoming moving machines and London is the bad guy. And the female protagonist has scarring on her face and her mom was involved in this conflict in the past. Nothing about this really grabs my attention- it could be a huge success or huge flop, depending on how many people see it and how well it's written.
"Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse"- this is animated and it's about a bunch of Spider-men in different alternate universes trying to defeat some bad guy. It looks like it'd be fun for kids, but as a superhero movie, there doesn't seem to be a lot to it. Although not every movie has to be as jam packed as the last Avengers film.
"Bumblebee"- this is another installment of the Transformers franchise. And this time, it's a girl (Hailee Steinfeld) who bonds with the machine. But instead of a Camero, like Shia LeBoeuf found all the way back in the first Michael Bay film (15 years ago, I think... wow, a lot's changed), Bumblebee is an old yellow VW beetle. And Michael Bay isn't directing, so it may have a chance to be halfway decent with its story and not being completely overtaken by effects and explosions.
"Five Feet Apart"- kind of an interesting teen movie... it's about a couple of kids who are in the hospital all the time, sick with cystic fibrosis and they fall in love. The guy is Cole Sprouse, who was Cody from "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody"... dang, that feels forever again and he looks so different now, it's crazy. But he's kind got a defeatist attitude about the whole thing and they start taking their meds together and falling in love, but they can't really interact physically cuz they could catch each other's germs and die. It has potential to be good... I just don't know how good.
"Detective Pikachu"- yeah... so many feelings about this one. This is one of those movies that could either be good or be a complete disaster. There's a video game that's been out for a while, my sister has watched playthroughs on YouTube, where Pikachu actually speaks words with kind of a deep voice and he's a detective, obviously. They actually brought Pikachu and the other Pokémon into the real world and they're animated so they kind of look like animated stuffed animals. I cannot begin to say how much I love this franchise, but depending on how this is done (I doubt I'd get to a theater to see it even if I wanted to), I could love it or really hate it. I'm already kinda weirded out about Pikachu talking like a normal person. The trick is that only this one teenager can understand him and they work together to solve a crime. Oh, and Ryan Reynolds is Pikachu, so there could be that whole self-deprecating Deadpool sense of humor (PG-rated, of course, this is a kid's franchise) involved that makes fun of the franchise. It's an interesting match-up, but I won't know until I see it if it's gonna work. At least for me... this is a side-mode game I don't see myself getting into. I personally just love the general franchise. Hard to believe next year will mark 20 years since I started playing the game, starting Blue and going onward. I actually took a break for a number of years, but I got back into it in 2015 when 2DS finally went down in price to $80... just in time for the Nintendo Switch, my timing totally rocks #Sarcasm
"Shazam!"- this has nothing to do with the Shaq movie from the 90's... it's another DC supehero where this teenager comes across this power and everytime he says the titular phrase, he turns into Zachary Levi and has super powers. It looks like it could be funny, but at the same time, I'm starting to get a little sick of superheroes. I don't know about everyone else.
The Main Event-
yeah, we're finally here... I'll put some mild spoilers about the previous Fantastic Beasts, but not so much for this movie...
But I'll cut to the chase in saying that this was the first time in all the Harry Potter franchise that I left a theater disappointed... as far as sequels go, The Twin Towers (Lord of the Rings), Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars)... even the first of the Deathly Hallows movies, all of them felt like they accomplished SOMETHING even though their purpose was to set up for the bigger picture that would come in the follow-up installments.
The title of the movie establishes, of course, that Grindewald is the villain and the whole purpose of this side franchise is to defeat him and throw him into Azkaban for eternity. And Grindewald does show up at the end of the prevous film. I just neglected to mention him (or Johnny Depp) in the cast at all because that would be a huge spoiler for that movie. But the HIstory of Magic, as told by J.K. Rowling (and Bathlida Bagshot, the character who wrote that particular Hogwarts textbook) states that Grindewald was defeated in an epic duel with Dumbledore. Heck, in the actual book, The Philospher's/Sorcerer's Stone, it says on Dumbeldore's Chocolate Frog card that he defeated the great Dark Wizard, Grindewald among his many accomplishments, including discovering 12 uses for dragon's blood and he and Nicholas Flamel studied the stone. I just looked it up... this duel takes place in 1945... meaning that we still have less than 20 years until this happens.
Of course, all of the movies will be leading up to this duel... I just hope more happens within this movies, like story progress, to warrant multiple installments.
I think the thing that really got to me about this movie was that there were a million questions we came into it with. First off, we find out that Credence is still alive... he wasn't killed at the end of the previous film, which I thought was a sad moment because there was a chance he could have been saved. Now, this movie starts with him being revealed to be alive and he's going to Paris to find out who his family is. Multiple explanations are given and they connect him to various Wizarding families familiar to Potter fans... but Grindewald finally gives him answers at the end and we have no idea if he's telling the truth or he's giving him this identity as a way to use him against Dumbledore.
That's just one example of several. But there were so many questions and by the end, very few of them were answered and more questions came up to take their place. Like trying to kill a Hydra. It's pretty dang annoying.
We get to reunite with our old favorite characters from the last movie. Newt Scamander is trying to get his travel ban lifted... and Dumbledore more or less helps him navigate around that. In the end, it makes a lot of sense why he does it this way, but Dumbledore becomes even more engimatic than he already is. He has his reasons behind what he does, but he has a real roundabout way of going about that. The Deathly Hallows had this major conflict between Harry and Ron because Ron was skeptical about Dumbledore sending them on this quest to find/destroy Horcruxes to defeat Voldemort when he's given no clues how to go about it. The answers do become clear eventually, but the lack of a road map is frustrating to him. We're all taught to trust Dumbledore absolutely... and maybe it's because it's Jude Law (who I really like, by the way) and it's a younger version of him, but it was hard for me to completely trust a younger Dumbledore. It's an uneasy feeling...
It's kinda cool to see him teach at Hogwarts. He's actually the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher and he's teaching the kids how to defeat Boggarts- poltergeists that take the shape of what a person fears and they need to use the Riddikulus charm to turn it into something funny to finish it off. Interestingly, he is relieved from this position by the Ministry of Magic- they're trying to find out what Grindewald is up to, but he's not being cooperative. This brings back the running joke that no DADA teacher has lasted at Hogwarts for more than a year. Although we see flashbacks when Newt and his ex-girlfriend, Leta Lestrange were going to school and they were fighting Boggarts then too. So Dumbledore was in this position for a couple years. I do remember when Tom Riddle was in his 6th year at Hogwarts (based on the flashback in Chamber of Secrets) that Dumbledore was a Transfiguration professor. The whole running joke actually started when Dumbledore refused to hire Tom Riddle as the DADA professor... and the position became cursed.
Anyway, I got away from the old characters. Newt is back and we find out the previous movie, he went to America because Dumbledore asked him too. We find out that the Muggle he and the other American wizards befriended... he didn't lose his memory like all of the other Muggles. And he and Queenie have been seeing each other. At the time, it was against the law for people with magic to be romantically involved with Muggles, people without magic. And of course, Newt has his suitcase full of creates and adds a few more to his collection. The Niffler also makes more appearances and it actually has a family now. (The theater was actually selling them for $12 and I was almost tempted to get one... they're so cute!)
And Newt and Tina see each other again, but things are a little tense because she thinks he's engaged to someone else... his brother is actually engaged to Newt's ex girlfriend, Leta. She's alluded to briefly in the previous movie, but we get to know her better here and she's also on a search to find out more about her family. We already knew the Lestranges were pretty screwed up because Bellatrix is a psychopath. She was the reason why Neville's parents, respected Aurors in their time, were driven to insanity via the Cruciatus Curse. She's very sadistic. And her family really has a screwed up history... we did get a healthy amount of history, but some of it was hard to watch. Interesting thing is that she's nowhere near as evil as her descendant was. I read up briefly on Newt's history cuz I thought he was related to some other wizard (the only connection I found, and already knew, was that his grandson married Luna Lovegood). He was expelled from Hogwarts because of something Leta did that endangered other students and he took the blame for it. There were flashbacks with her and Newt and they were fun to watch. The actors they cast looked a lot like them and had the mannerisms down perfectly.
The one thing amiss about this movie was that it is called the "Crimes of Grindewald"... he doesn't really have a lot of screen time and he's really not committing any crimes... not yet anyway. Sure, the movie starts with him being transferred from the American ministry to London's ministry and by extension, Azkaban and he escapes custody (the one thing we learn about prison transfers in movies and TV... they never end well) and a bunch of wizards are killed in the process... and he does have some people killed in Paris in order to lie low in their residence... but with that title, you'd expect something more.
Instead what he does is try swaying Credence to join him and he's reaching out to other Wizards and Witches to join him and commit to "The Greater Good"- that phrase has come up once or twice in the Harry Potter books and goes back to him. His goal is to get the Wizarding world out into the open, to stop all the secrery and hiding from the human world. He also shows visions to his brethen of what he sees is the future- tanks, Holocausts and atomic bombs. He more or less predicts the humans will bring the end of the world with World War II. Funny enough, 1945, which is around the time the war is ending... that's when he's supposed to face off against Dumbledore.
Another character we meet is Nagini. Harry Potter fans know her as the snake that follows Voldemort and ultimately becomes a Horcrux. Here, she's an Animagus that's part of a freakshow cirus. The ringleader says to the crowds that she changes to a snake by night and there will come a time when she'll transform and never be able to change back. Whether that's true or just for sure, it's hard to be sure. I just know that she will eventually become a snake permanently to serve Voldemort. (Speaking of Voldemort, I checked on him and he was born in 1926, so he was a baby when this movie was taking place. And when the duel happens, he's 19... so there is a possibility then that Tom Riddle will appear in one of these movies at some point. There's nothing on his Wiki page that says he was inspired by Grindewald... but JK Rowling could still make a connection somewhere, especially if we see more of Nagini in later moies)
Those who pay attention will see some other cameos of characters that relate back to the other franchise. I noted Jamie Campbell Bower, despite the fact he has no lines, he is shown in pictures alongside Dumbledore and he played him in the Deathly Hallows flashback... I just liked how they kept that continuity... and that they changed his eyes to make him look similiar to Johnny Depp.
There's also a funny cameo from Nicholas Flamel... when Harry Potter was in Hogwarts, Flamel had just celebrated his 665th birthday. This is 70 years earlier, meaning he was just short of 600. He looks pretty ancient as it is :P which is crazy to think he's still alive, but he is staying alive thanks to the Elixir of Life from the Sorceror's Stone. He comments how he hadn't seen any action in decades, but we do see him later in the movie. We find him because he's in charge of the safe house Dumbledore told to Newt. So even then, those two were good friends.
And to fulfill another curiosity of mine, I looked up Dumbledore because I thought Jude Law looked too young to play him when he looked so much older in the Harry Potter movies. I thought maybe he'd be as old as Nicholas Flamel because of how close they are... not even close... the wiki page says Dumbledore was born in 1881. Meaning he was 100 when Harry's parents were murdered and he was 116 when he was killed. So relating it to the Fantastic Beasts timeline, Dumbledore was 45-46.
Ok, that makes a bit more sense.
Going back to the movie as a whole, though, it does start up really slow. A lot of exposition where we catch up with old characters and learn about some new ones. But I don't really know what the point of this movie was. Was it trying to stop Grindewald, and failing? Was it trying to kill or arrest Credence, and failing? From what I can tell, it was about drawing lines about what side everyone was on, the "Greater Good" as Grindewald puts it or was it to remain at peace with the muggle world.
There's some great action with other beasts that Newt befriends, although so much is happening, it's hard to keep track of everything. We start to get some answers about things as we go, but more questions pop up to take their place.
All this movie sees to be is a set-up for future sequels. And I really hope more happens in the next movie to make up for the lack of clarity with this one.
Grade: B- (I get the feeling a lot of other people, particularly non-Potter fans, wouldn't be nearly this considerate)
Showing posts with label Harry Potter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harry Potter. Show all posts
Friday, November 23, 2018
Friday, October 26, 2018
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2)- 2011
Director: David Yates
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)Composer: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Ollivander- John Hurt (RIP 2017)
Luna Lovegood- Evanna Lynch
Matthew Lewis- Neville Longbottom
Albus Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
[newcomers]
Aberforth Dumbledore- Ciarán Hinds
Helena Ravenclaw- Kelly Macdonald
Again... so many actors... I hope I got all of the most notable characters in this movie.
Oscar Nominations:
Best Make-Up
Best Visual Effects
Best Art Direction
Write-up:
The Start of an Unfortunate Trend
Well, finally coming to the end of all these movies... it's been a long time coming.
I mentioned in my post on the last part that I'd only read through the book maybe three times ever... and my mom refuses to watch the first part unless there's a promise to watch this movie in the immediate future, whether it's within a week or the same day. (No joke- there was one time we watched the movies back to back with a brief intermission in the middle)
Although they could have easily turned the last Harry Potter book into one movie (nothing really happens for much of it...), it was ultimately good that they split this into two movies. It's conducive to the plot and the characters. Emphasizing how impossible it was to find the Horcruxes to destroy and ultimately beat the villain of the whole franchise, Voldemort.
Unfortunately, this kicked off a really annoying trend in Hollywood... splitting the final installment EVERY YA film series into two movies.
Breaking Dawn (Twilight) could have probably have been handled in one movie, but ultimately, it worked out that it was split into two movies.
But with the Hunger Games... bleck... I really liked the first two books in the series, but I didn't like Mockingjay at all. Part 1 was kinda like part 1 of the Deathly Hallows... very little happened... Katniss did propaganda videos and they rescued Peeta, but Peeta is now a mindless killing machine. At least things happened in the second part... but I just wasn't a fan. It could have been done in one movie easily...
And the whole Divergent series got hi-jacked, doing what was nothing short of a money grab that failed miserably. It got compared to The Hunger Games a lot when the two franchises are completely different and by this point, apparently there was a lot of "fatigue" involving YA adaptations. In other words, they tried to split the last book of a trilogy into two movies and the first movie did so badly in the box office that they never did a part two... then they were going to do it as a TV movie and all of the main actors said they weren't doing it... I don't know if it's still happening, but why bother without the main cast? No Shailene Woodley, no Theo James, not even Miles Tiller wants anything to do with it anymore.
I mean, the book was a really disappointing ending. Confusing and I died inside as I was reading it. So maybe that was all for the best....
At least 50 Shades Freed didn't get split into 2 movies... but I don't think anyone wanted any more of those movies than were necessary. (Although that technically wasn't an Young Adult book series... and neither is the Avengers series, Infinity War being the first of two parts).
Adaptation
Because I'd only read this book maybe three times, I can't say too much on how well it was adapted. But from what I remembered from the book, they nailed it.
one final SPOILER ALERT... if you read the books, you'd already know this, but so you're warned..
There was one part of the book that really confused me and seeing it on the big screen really helped explain it. There was this hunt for the Horcruxes, items where Voldemort stashed pieces of his soul. It goes back to the big question about the series ever since the prophecy was revealed in The Order of the Phoenix- "Neither can live while the other survives"... meaning Harry or Voldemort dies at the end of the series. And I thought for sure that Harry would live and things would be fine. But then Voldemort uses the Killing Curse on Harry and Harry dies... and then he's actually still alive. Reading the book in this part was so confusing: how could Harry get killed but still live...
Dumbledore more or less explained that Harry was the final Horcrux Voldemort never intended to make. Killing people rips away part of your soul, so when Voledmort killed Harry's parents, part of his soul was ripped from him and somehow attached itself to Harry. And the killing curse killed *it* instead of Harry himself.
That's about as out there as "of course, this is happening inside your head, Harry, but why should that mean it isn't real?"
Harry lives in the end, so there's nothing to really question. But it was pretty cool how they did that part of the movie.
As a film, it was really well paced. The first couple of times I watched it, the movie went so fast. The first part is getting another Horcrux, which happens to be the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange- explaining why she was extra mean in the previous movie when she thought that they had been in her vault. So they break into the Gringotts with the help of Griphook the Goblin... and of course stuff happens and it's not as easy as it seems at first.
But the bulk of the movie is spent in Hogwarts- as it should be- trying to find the final Horcruxes. And all the Death Eaters and Voldemort are there. It's a very intense situation, how much the school had changed since they moved in and Snape is the new Headmaster.
In fact, the pacing of the movie makes it feel like all of this is happening in real life. Particularly the scenes in Hogwarts- it feels like it's within a single night and that gives it a different feel than the movies before it. I can't quite put it into words, but it gives the movie a cool vibe I really like. Makes things seem more real and serious- as if they weren't already, taking everything into account.
Character Appreciation
Another thing I liked about this movie was that they show us more about our favorite characters that we hadn't gotten to see.
It wasn't in the book, but McGonagal does an epic spell to help protect the school from the impending invasion of the Death Eaters and almost bursting with pride, face all aglow, she says "I've always wanted to use that spell."
But there is one notable thing in this movie and the book in general... a point that has been often discussed and debated for the duration of the series. Whether or not we can trust Snape. My mom had said for years that he's being made out to be the bad guy, but he really isn't. I thought for sure the fact Snape killed Dumbledore and left the school with the Death Eaters at the end of the Half-Blood Prince was all the proof we needed.
Apparently, she was right this whole time... and I had to admit it.
Plain and simple: the story arc with Snape, his entire life and what ultimately happens to him... that was the biggest motivation for me to watch through the movies and read through the books again, almost as soon as the last movie came out. Not the fact that the whole thing was over and there was nothing left to do (except wait for the last Twilight movie, I think at that time)... I wanted to read through the books and see the movies again purely to watch Snape and reanalyze all of his actions with his motivations finally clear.
The short version: Snape was in love with Harry's mom and he knew her before they went to Hogwarts. And he hated Harry's dad because they ended up together and also because his dad and his friends bullied him all the time. He was working with Voldemort, a former Death Eater, but he turned spy for the Order of the Phoenix when he discovered the Potters were going to be killed. And in the memory of Harry's mom, Snape watched over Harry. Which wasn't the easiest thing because he saw too much of his father in him. But in the end, he was redeemed.
[I'm sorry, I know I said that was the short version... but I just couldn't manage that]
Probably the coolest part was learning that J.K. Rowling actually told Alan Rickman what was going to happen with his character and he acted accordingly. The fact he brought that much to the character... just wow...
On a smaller scale, it was kinda cool that Neville and Luna got to go above and beyond. I think J.K. Rowling also told Matthew Lewis that big things were in store for Neville. Luna has this reputation for being a little extraordinary, thinking in different ways and she says a lot of things that aren't taken completely seriously. Not only is she right about who to ask about the last Horcrux, but she demands that Harry listen to her and damn- does he take notice.
Also- Helena Ravenclaw, aka the Grey Lady aka daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw, the founder of the Ravenclaw house... she's played by the actress who did the voice of Meirida in "Brave"... I just found that out and that blew my mind.
...I'm trying to think if there were any storylines within this movie that I missed before addressing something that wasn't done justice.
The movie ends with Harry and his friends sending their kids to Hogwarts. While I understand why the kids were named what they were... I just thought it was kinda lame. Harry naming two of his kids after his parents... Once Upon a Time did something similiar, where Snow White and Prince Charming named their second child after Neal, Emma's boyfriend who did something that ultimately saved Storybrooke (for the third time, I think, by that point)... and Zelena named her baby Robin after Robin Hood... give me a break :roll: the homage is nice, but it makes it seem like the writers really weren't that creative.
And Harry naming another after two Headmasters of Hogwarts... dude... if this wasn't Hogwarts and his dad wasn't The Boy Who Lived and defeated Voldemort, his kid would have gotten beat up so bad for having such a silly sounding name.
One thing I didn't like about the movie... there were a lot of casualities... that goes without saying... but all of the significant deaths of good guys in the movie were shown in a montage with really sad music on the top.
Fred Weasley dies and we briefly see that.
Lavender Brown, I think, was attacked by Fenrir Greyback.
Then there's Lupin and Tonks... I think I said this in a previous post... I do not get how they were a couple or why they were a couple. It did not make sense.
And there was a storyline in this book that was almost completely overlooked... Lupin and Tonks were having a baby and Lupin was very uneasy about it. It was at the point where he visited Harry, Ron and Hermione at Grimmauld Place and asked to come with them to find the Horcruxes and Harry told him he had to be with Tonks and (paraphrasing here) stop being such a wuss about it. He was nervous about it because he's a werewolf and he was afraid that gene would be passed forward.
Anyway, both of them are killed in the Battle of Hogwarts and Harry only mentions they had a son in passing, telling this to Lupin's ghost that came out of the Resurrection Stone- oh yeah, the stone was what was inside of the Golden Snitch Harry got from Dumbledore's Will. If anything is to be learned from the Harry Potter world, all of the legends are true. Including the legend of the Deathly Hallows.
I don't know why, but it just annoyed me how that storyline was never really addressed in the movie. Almost like the movie was meant to be a companion piece to the books rather than an adaptation of it... but it wasn't like they got everything right all the time. My posts have addressed this.
It's a minor detail... but another change in the movie... there's a scene where Harry goes into the Room of Requirement to find another Horcrux and he's found out by Draco Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. And Crabbe triggers a curse that not only burns down the room, but leads to his death.
Well, because the actor that played Crabbe got in trouble because he caught smoking marijuana and he was fired from the movies, instead of recasting him, they just gave this role to Goyle. I know it's very minor, but it still kinda bugs me that they made that change.
Going back to the positives... it's nice that the Malfoys do get a little repreive. They aren't the nicest people, but Voldemort really put them through hell. And because Harry has the decency (Ron might call it idiocy, considering they almost died doing so) of saving Draco, Narcissa Malfoy lied to Voldemort about Harry being alive. And the Malfoys, once reunited, discretely sneak into the back before all hell breaks loose upon the discovery that Harry's still alive. Like with Snape, the audience was predisposed (hope I'm using that right) to dislike Draco Malfoy and Lucius Malfoy based on the actions they did in the movies. But with Narcissa Malfoy, we saw so little of her in the movies. The first time was in the Half-Blood Prince where she asks Snape to make the Unbreakable Vow to watch over Draco. And only a few things since then... but we see that even though her family is full of Death Eaters and she's one herself, she's a mom underneath all that and that's ultimately the motivation of her character. She couldn't have been any more different from her sister, Bellatrix Lestrange.
By the way, her death scene... maybe even more satisfying than Voldemort's death despite the fact we waited the whole series for it to happen... if anything, I found it anti-climatic.
And there wasn't even a celebration scene at the end of the movie... after EIGHT movies, I at least expected something like Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. There weren't even any fireworks.
There was also a moment in the book where Harry used the Elder Wand to repair his old wand with the Phoenix tailfeather that broke in Godric's Hollow... unless he did it offscreen...
I know these things are a bit out of order from the headings, but I'm making this up as I go... as I often do.
...
And that's all of the Harry Potter movies...all that's left is to look forward to the next Fantastic Beasts movie... and based on the trailers, it looks like it's a lot of ground to cover.
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)Composer: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Ollivander- John Hurt (RIP 2017)
Luna Lovegood- Evanna Lynch
Matthew Lewis- Neville Longbottom
Albus Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
[newcomers]
Aberforth Dumbledore- Ciarán Hinds
Helena Ravenclaw- Kelly Macdonald
Again... so many actors... I hope I got all of the most notable characters in this movie.
Oscar Nominations:
Best Make-Up
Best Visual Effects
Best Art Direction
Write-up:
The Start of an Unfortunate Trend
Well, finally coming to the end of all these movies... it's been a long time coming.
I mentioned in my post on the last part that I'd only read through the book maybe three times ever... and my mom refuses to watch the first part unless there's a promise to watch this movie in the immediate future, whether it's within a week or the same day. (No joke- there was one time we watched the movies back to back with a brief intermission in the middle)
Although they could have easily turned the last Harry Potter book into one movie (nothing really happens for much of it...), it was ultimately good that they split this into two movies. It's conducive to the plot and the characters. Emphasizing how impossible it was to find the Horcruxes to destroy and ultimately beat the villain of the whole franchise, Voldemort.
Unfortunately, this kicked off a really annoying trend in Hollywood... splitting the final installment EVERY YA film series into two movies.
Breaking Dawn (Twilight) could have probably have been handled in one movie, but ultimately, it worked out that it was split into two movies.
But with the Hunger Games... bleck... I really liked the first two books in the series, but I didn't like Mockingjay at all. Part 1 was kinda like part 1 of the Deathly Hallows... very little happened... Katniss did propaganda videos and they rescued Peeta, but Peeta is now a mindless killing machine. At least things happened in the second part... but I just wasn't a fan. It could have been done in one movie easily...
And the whole Divergent series got hi-jacked, doing what was nothing short of a money grab that failed miserably. It got compared to The Hunger Games a lot when the two franchises are completely different and by this point, apparently there was a lot of "fatigue" involving YA adaptations. In other words, they tried to split the last book of a trilogy into two movies and the first movie did so badly in the box office that they never did a part two... then they were going to do it as a TV movie and all of the main actors said they weren't doing it... I don't know if it's still happening, but why bother without the main cast? No Shailene Woodley, no Theo James, not even Miles Tiller wants anything to do with it anymore.
I mean, the book was a really disappointing ending. Confusing and I died inside as I was reading it. So maybe that was all for the best....
At least 50 Shades Freed didn't get split into 2 movies... but I don't think anyone wanted any more of those movies than were necessary. (Although that technically wasn't an Young Adult book series... and neither is the Avengers series, Infinity War being the first of two parts).
Adaptation
Because I'd only read this book maybe three times, I can't say too much on how well it was adapted. But from what I remembered from the book, they nailed it.
one final SPOILER ALERT... if you read the books, you'd already know this, but so you're warned..
There was one part of the book that really confused me and seeing it on the big screen really helped explain it. There was this hunt for the Horcruxes, items where Voldemort stashed pieces of his soul. It goes back to the big question about the series ever since the prophecy was revealed in The Order of the Phoenix- "Neither can live while the other survives"... meaning Harry or Voldemort dies at the end of the series. And I thought for sure that Harry would live and things would be fine. But then Voldemort uses the Killing Curse on Harry and Harry dies... and then he's actually still alive. Reading the book in this part was so confusing: how could Harry get killed but still live...
Dumbledore more or less explained that Harry was the final Horcrux Voldemort never intended to make. Killing people rips away part of your soul, so when Voledmort killed Harry's parents, part of his soul was ripped from him and somehow attached itself to Harry. And the killing curse killed *it* instead of Harry himself.
That's about as out there as "of course, this is happening inside your head, Harry, but why should that mean it isn't real?"
Harry lives in the end, so there's nothing to really question. But it was pretty cool how they did that part of the movie.
As a film, it was really well paced. The first couple of times I watched it, the movie went so fast. The first part is getting another Horcrux, which happens to be the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange- explaining why she was extra mean in the previous movie when she thought that they had been in her vault. So they break into the Gringotts with the help of Griphook the Goblin... and of course stuff happens and it's not as easy as it seems at first.
But the bulk of the movie is spent in Hogwarts- as it should be- trying to find the final Horcruxes. And all the Death Eaters and Voldemort are there. It's a very intense situation, how much the school had changed since they moved in and Snape is the new Headmaster.
In fact, the pacing of the movie makes it feel like all of this is happening in real life. Particularly the scenes in Hogwarts- it feels like it's within a single night and that gives it a different feel than the movies before it. I can't quite put it into words, but it gives the movie a cool vibe I really like. Makes things seem more real and serious- as if they weren't already, taking everything into account.
Character Appreciation
Another thing I liked about this movie was that they show us more about our favorite characters that we hadn't gotten to see.
It wasn't in the book, but McGonagal does an epic spell to help protect the school from the impending invasion of the Death Eaters and almost bursting with pride, face all aglow, she says "I've always wanted to use that spell."
But there is one notable thing in this movie and the book in general... a point that has been often discussed and debated for the duration of the series. Whether or not we can trust Snape. My mom had said for years that he's being made out to be the bad guy, but he really isn't. I thought for sure the fact Snape killed Dumbledore and left the school with the Death Eaters at the end of the Half-Blood Prince was all the proof we needed.
Apparently, she was right this whole time... and I had to admit it.
Plain and simple: the story arc with Snape, his entire life and what ultimately happens to him... that was the biggest motivation for me to watch through the movies and read through the books again, almost as soon as the last movie came out. Not the fact that the whole thing was over and there was nothing left to do (except wait for the last Twilight movie, I think at that time)... I wanted to read through the books and see the movies again purely to watch Snape and reanalyze all of his actions with his motivations finally clear.
The short version: Snape was in love with Harry's mom and he knew her before they went to Hogwarts. And he hated Harry's dad because they ended up together and also because his dad and his friends bullied him all the time. He was working with Voldemort, a former Death Eater, but he turned spy for the Order of the Phoenix when he discovered the Potters were going to be killed. And in the memory of Harry's mom, Snape watched over Harry. Which wasn't the easiest thing because he saw too much of his father in him. But in the end, he was redeemed.
[I'm sorry, I know I said that was the short version... but I just couldn't manage that]
Probably the coolest part was learning that J.K. Rowling actually told Alan Rickman what was going to happen with his character and he acted accordingly. The fact he brought that much to the character... just wow...
On a smaller scale, it was kinda cool that Neville and Luna got to go above and beyond. I think J.K. Rowling also told Matthew Lewis that big things were in store for Neville. Luna has this reputation for being a little extraordinary, thinking in different ways and she says a lot of things that aren't taken completely seriously. Not only is she right about who to ask about the last Horcrux, but she demands that Harry listen to her and damn- does he take notice.
Also- Helena Ravenclaw, aka the Grey Lady aka daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw, the founder of the Ravenclaw house... she's played by the actress who did the voice of Meirida in "Brave"... I just found that out and that blew my mind.
...I'm trying to think if there were any storylines within this movie that I missed before addressing something that wasn't done justice.
The movie ends with Harry and his friends sending their kids to Hogwarts. While I understand why the kids were named what they were... I just thought it was kinda lame. Harry naming two of his kids after his parents... Once Upon a Time did something similiar, where Snow White and Prince Charming named their second child after Neal, Emma's boyfriend who did something that ultimately saved Storybrooke (for the third time, I think, by that point)... and Zelena named her baby Robin after Robin Hood... give me a break :roll: the homage is nice, but it makes it seem like the writers really weren't that creative.
And Harry naming another after two Headmasters of Hogwarts... dude... if this wasn't Hogwarts and his dad wasn't The Boy Who Lived and defeated Voldemort, his kid would have gotten beat up so bad for having such a silly sounding name.
One thing I didn't like about the movie... there were a lot of casualities... that goes without saying... but all of the significant deaths of good guys in the movie were shown in a montage with really sad music on the top.
Fred Weasley dies and we briefly see that.
Lavender Brown, I think, was attacked by Fenrir Greyback.
Then there's Lupin and Tonks... I think I said this in a previous post... I do not get how they were a couple or why they were a couple. It did not make sense.
And there was a storyline in this book that was almost completely overlooked... Lupin and Tonks were having a baby and Lupin was very uneasy about it. It was at the point where he visited Harry, Ron and Hermione at Grimmauld Place and asked to come with them to find the Horcruxes and Harry told him he had to be with Tonks and (paraphrasing here) stop being such a wuss about it. He was nervous about it because he's a werewolf and he was afraid that gene would be passed forward.
Anyway, both of them are killed in the Battle of Hogwarts and Harry only mentions they had a son in passing, telling this to Lupin's ghost that came out of the Resurrection Stone- oh yeah, the stone was what was inside of the Golden Snitch Harry got from Dumbledore's Will. If anything is to be learned from the Harry Potter world, all of the legends are true. Including the legend of the Deathly Hallows.
I don't know why, but it just annoyed me how that storyline was never really addressed in the movie. Almost like the movie was meant to be a companion piece to the books rather than an adaptation of it... but it wasn't like they got everything right all the time. My posts have addressed this.
It's a minor detail... but another change in the movie... there's a scene where Harry goes into the Room of Requirement to find another Horcrux and he's found out by Draco Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. And Crabbe triggers a curse that not only burns down the room, but leads to his death.
Well, because the actor that played Crabbe got in trouble because he caught smoking marijuana and he was fired from the movies, instead of recasting him, they just gave this role to Goyle. I know it's very minor, but it still kinda bugs me that they made that change.
Going back to the positives... it's nice that the Malfoys do get a little repreive. They aren't the nicest people, but Voldemort really put them through hell. And because Harry has the decency (Ron might call it idiocy, considering they almost died doing so) of saving Draco, Narcissa Malfoy lied to Voldemort about Harry being alive. And the Malfoys, once reunited, discretely sneak into the back before all hell breaks loose upon the discovery that Harry's still alive. Like with Snape, the audience was predisposed (hope I'm using that right) to dislike Draco Malfoy and Lucius Malfoy based on the actions they did in the movies. But with Narcissa Malfoy, we saw so little of her in the movies. The first time was in the Half-Blood Prince where she asks Snape to make the Unbreakable Vow to watch over Draco. And only a few things since then... but we see that even though her family is full of Death Eaters and she's one herself, she's a mom underneath all that and that's ultimately the motivation of her character. She couldn't have been any more different from her sister, Bellatrix Lestrange.
By the way, her death scene... maybe even more satisfying than Voldemort's death despite the fact we waited the whole series for it to happen... if anything, I found it anti-climatic.
And there wasn't even a celebration scene at the end of the movie... after EIGHT movies, I at least expected something like Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. There weren't even any fireworks.
There was also a moment in the book where Harry used the Elder Wand to repair his old wand with the Phoenix tailfeather that broke in Godric's Hollow... unless he did it offscreen...
I know these things are a bit out of order from the headings, but I'm making this up as I go... as I often do.
...
And that's all of the Harry Potter movies...all that's left is to look forward to the next Fantastic Beasts movie... and based on the trailers, it looks like it's a lot of ground to cover.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1)- 2010
Director: David Yates
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Mrs. Weasley- Julie Walters
Mr. Weasley- Mark Williams
Mad-Eye Moody- Brendan Gleeson
Fleur DeLaCoeur- Cleménce Poésy
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Dolores Umbridge- Imelda Stanton
[newcomers]
Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeor- Bill Nighy
Bill Weasley- Domnhall Gleeson (in case you didn't make the connection, fun fact- he's Mad Eye's son IRL... he'd also since shown up in the Star Wars movies as an Empire commander who gets made fun of a lot by the other characters, good and bad)
Xenophilius Lovegood- Rhys Ifans
Mundungus Fletcher- Andy Linden
Yaxley- Peter Mullan
...it's really hard trying to figure out who I should and shouldn't include... there's so many people in this movie, but few with really big roles.
Notable Nominations:
Art Direction and Visual Effects
Write-up:
Opening Comments
Wow, my last post from this series was in 2016... I don't think I'd seen any of the movies except maybe the Chamber of Secrets and Fantastic Beasts since then. I think it's also the first time I'd seen any of the movies since we actually went to Harry Potter in Universal Studios. That was one tremendous nerdgasm, just seeing all this stuff from the movies. Hogsmeade Village and Diagon Alley as well as so many tourists in costume and robes. It's almost like it's Comic-Con there every day and it is awesome. (Also, very expensive). We went through Hogwarts Castle and were unknowingly whisked off to a ride where we had to escape the castle. Our feet were dangling and we were thrown forward and backwards and the visuals varied between actual set design and a movie where we zipped through the Quidditch pitch and around the castle. My mom keeps saying she loved it, but it half scared the crap out of me and my sister. I literally blinked my way through the times we were moving because a) it was a little too much of a rush and b) it was kinda terrifying and I thought maybe I'd throw up a couple times. But the times we were still or laying on our backs, just looking at the scenery around us. We saw spiders, dementors and the Hungarian Horntail. The dragon and its breath were AWESOME. The spiders and dementors... :shudder: both creepy. At least with the dementor, I tried to think happy thoughts because that's how you defeat them. Yep, I'm a true Potter head :P
We also ate true British cuisine at the Hogsmeade Pub and had Butterbeer... so good! We also saw some girls dressed like they went to Madame Maxime's Academy of Magic. As for souvenirs, I got a T-shirt, a Ravenclaw scarf (cuz I like blue... although I may have fit into that house... I took the quiz at Pottermore and it actually put me in Slytherin... in my defense, so was Merlin and he wasn't a bad wizard), and a time-turner. And the cashier was great, saying for me not to use the time-turner to take more money out of my band account. He was totally in character and it was awesome.
Oh and we also saw Grimmauld Place on the street... which brings me back to this movie. The film does spend some time there, but seeing it again after having been there last October... oh man, that was great.
Now for the actual movie...
It was a 2-part movie and this is part one. For Harry Potter, this was definitely justified because both halves revolve around two different settings. Part One is basically Harry, Ron and Hermione on the run, trying to figure out how to find Horcruxes (objects that contain pieces of Voldemort's soul) and destroy them. And Part Two is essentially "the Battle of Hogwarts." Where they decided to split the two movies couldn't have been more perfect.
Spoilers Ahead...Read the Books!
Adaptation
For starters, I'll say that I think I'd read this book three times EVER. Once was when we first got it... I remember that my mom and dad were off to Vegas July 2007. Sometime when they were away, I watched Under the Cherry Moon for the first time (and my sister walked in a couple of times and said there was too much kissing in the movie... and Prince isn't the best on-screen kisser, I don't think anyway). And when they came back, my mom came with the book. She bought it at the airport and was reading it on the plane, as was another passenger and they briefly talked about being fans and such.
I remember my experience reading the book and how we took turns with it. The first hundred or so pages was agonizing because nothing was happening. So when this movie was split up, I initially thought that a lot of this book could have been shrunk down to fit into one movie. But after seeing the end result, I'm happy with how they did it.
As for transferring the book to the actual movie, most of it was done well. I wish they kept the scene where Harry and his cousin Dudley have their final goodbyes because it was kinda of a big moment in the book. A bit of a payoff after all those years where Dudley and his friends bullied him.
The story kept pace pretty well and they montaged a lot of stuff that should have been montaged in the actual book, lol. We watched it last night and I felt like the movie zipped by really fast. It's 2 hours and 13 minutes and it really didn't drag. Maybe because I spent half of the movie noticing little things I hadn't before or that I was actively questioning stuff. You know, nerding out.
For the most part, I think the story followed the book really well and not much was changed too much where I could complain about it.
One new thing I noticed was at Malfoy Manor at the beginning. Voldemort is practically having a Council of Evil dinner party and they're discussing finding/killing Harry when he's being shuttled to a safe house. At the table, there were a couple of characters I didn't pay much attention to until now. This was this guy Yaxley that nearly catches up with Harry and his friends when they infiltrate the Ministry of Magic and I thought it was weird that Hermione knew his name, but I had no idea who he was or why he was after them. Seeing him at this dinner party, I totally get the connection. And the guy that Voldemort says spoke "like a true politician"- he becomes the new Minister of Magic.
Oh yeah... Rufus Scrimgeour is the new Minister of Magic that was elected after Fudge had to resign at the end of the Order of the Phoenix. He was elected in the 6th book and actually meets Harry where he tries to get him to help the Minister renew their image or mend relations with him after they spent the previous book tarnishing his image. Harry, of course, declines and lets him have it. In this movie, we're meeting him for the first time. A little nit-pick, I know, but I thought it was a little too much when we start the movie with him giving a speech and the camera is staring at his eyes... a little TOO close there, Mr. Director!
He shows up at the Weasley House to read Dumbledore's Will (I remember how this was one of the first three scenes we got to see before the movie came out) and bequeaths three random objects to the three main characters and ultimately says "I don't know what you plan to do, but you can't do this alone"... then next we hear about him, he gets killed by Death Eaters and the Ministry has fallen...
The movie starts on a bit of a sad note because Hermione wipes her parents' memories of her. I remember watching through this YouTube series, Cinema Sins, where they nitpick movies endlessly. Half of their Harry Potter nitpicks were things that were EXPLAINED IN THE BOOKS so I thought they were completely stupid. The other half is Deus Ex Machina, a literary device where things are conveniently placed in the books because they explain/resolve things later in the plot. One example is in Chamber of Secrets where Herbology happens to be teaching everyone about Mandrakes the same year Mudbloods are getting petrified and juice made from them is the cure. It's something that does happen a lot in the Harry Potter books, but so what... so as much as I like watching Cinema Sins, the guy behind it sounds like an ignorant jerk... I guess you could call it a guilty pleasure cuz I'd watched a bunch of these videos.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make... he got one thing right... when Hermione wipes her parents' memories, she also erases her picture from all the picture frames. His comment was "won't Hermione's parents think it's strange they have a lot of blank picture frames in their house"... I get why she did it. Cuz if the Death Eaters find them and who they are, they'd probably torture them with the Cruciatus Curse and drive them incurably insane.
We do get a little story process when Harry and the other two stay at Grimmauld Place and learn who R.A.B. is. He left a note inside the locket Harry and Dumbledore retrieved in the previous movie, saying the locket is a fake and he plans to destroy the real Horcrux. Having inherited Grimmauld Place and Kreaker the house-elf from Sirius, Harry's able to compel Kreaker to tell him where the locket is. Mundungus Fletcher barely has any screen time, but we at least give him hell for running away when the Death Eaters attack the Order when they're transferring Harry to the safe house. It's because he ran that Mad-Eye Moody got killed.
But wouldn't you know it- the Ministry person he sold the locket was OUR Undesirable #1, former Professor Umbridge. I can understand why J.K. Rowling brought her back (she was disgraced and fired after her actions in the 5th book) in this book because who else to be in charge of the Muggle Registry... someone who thinks she knows better than everyone else and passive-aggressively tells muggle-borns that they can't be witches or wizards because they have no magic blood. Voldemort has always preferred purebloods above all others, but his policies really do hit home when we see all the propaganda the Ministry is sending out.
I could talk more on politics and who Umbridge reminds me of, but I've got better things to do.
While the movie is pretty dang serious through most of it, it's nice to have some of the Weasleys as comic relief. George gets injured the night of Harry's transfer and he comes up with the perfect line to make the seriousness of it go away. And later Ron has a couple of funny lines as well. That kinda makes up for the fact he turns into a jerk halfway through the movie and leaves because (shock horror) Harry has no idea how to find or destroy the Horcruxes. I thought Ron was a bit of a jerk in the Goblet of Fire after Harry is chosen to be in the Triwizard tournament, but this was over the top. But I guess if someone had to leave, he would... it also brings up a good talking point that the fandom had talked about for years. About why Harry and Hermione didn't end up together because they seem to be a good fit. I think J.K. Rowling came out and said she wanted to put Harry and Hermione together as well, but doing so would have taken Ron out of the picture entirely. Although looking at the actual quote where she says Ron/Hermione was "wish fulfillment"... I don't quite understand what she means by that. The article I read tried to explain that, but never gets anywhere.
But Ron has had issues for years being in the shadow of all his brothers as well as the great Harry Potter, so it makes sense that this would come to a head here of all places. There was a scene in the movie that was new and it was a nice addition. Hermione is depressed when Ron leaves and Harry tries to cheer her up by dancing with her to something on the radio.
My favorite scene of the whole movie is in Godric's Hollow where Harry wants to see where his parents are buried and it's where Bathilda Bagshot lives. She apparently was interviewed by Rita Skeeter for a new book (a smear piece on Dumbledore and his private life... she's still at, unfortunately... in the 4th book, Hermione does inevitably catch up with her and threatens to out her as an illegal Animagus if she doesn't stop with the swear pieces... it was left out of the movies, but considering this storyline, it kinda makes sense that it was left out). Anyway, Harry thinks it might be another lead towards a Horcrux.
Just the moment where it's snowing on Christmas Eve and Harry and Hermione are looking over the Potters' headstone... it was really solemn and sweet and sad all at the same time.
The way Ron ultimately comes back, maybe there were too many coincidences thrown together to make it work, but I honestly don't care. But him talking about this little ball of light that comes out of the Deluminator, goes into his heart and takes him to where Harry and Hermione are... I vaguely remember at the Oscars that they made fun, trying to make it sound like he's singing about this little ball of light. They did that with other movies too, but that one always stuck with me LOL
Another great scene is where they see Luna's dad about this symbol sees in her Beedle the Bard book (another thing from Dumbledore's will) and at the Peverell grave in Godric's Hollow. Three guesses what the symbol is... it's in the title...
Anyway, Hermione reads this story about the Three Brothers, which is about the Deathly Hallows. They choose to animate it. Not only is it a compelling story and Hermione is a great reader... but just the way it is animated... I got so sucked in that I was enchanted for the rest of the movie. It's REALLY well done. No doubt that's the reason this movie was nominated for two Oscars... beat by Inception and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
The remainder of the movie is pretty dramatic, though...
Harry and the others get caught by Snatchers (who work with the Ministry to round up Muggleborns with winds) and taken to the Malfoys because despite a stinging jinx Hermione uses on him, they believe Harry is with them.
Harry and Ron are thrown in the basement and Bellatrix Lestrange tortures Hermione, thinking they stole the sword of Gryffindor from her Gringotts Vault. According to IMDB, a lot of it was cut out because it would have pushed for a more mature rating. It was that bad. And it also says that after the scene was shot, Helena Bonham Carter is extremely apologetic to Emma Watson. The screaming and her expression afterwards really sells it. (She'd carved "mudblood" into her arm).
Throughout the books, Dobby the House-Elf made several appearances since Harry freed in the Chamber of the Secrets. But in the movies, all of the moments where he helped further the plot (giving Harry the gillyweed for the 2nd task at the Triwizard tournament and locating the Room of Requirement for Dumbledore's Army to meet) were given to Neville. I don't disagree with giving Neville more screen time to do something other than getting jinxed... but I just thought it was lazy on their part cuz they didn't want to spend time on that animation.
Dobby finally returns and of course it's for the last time... that's the really unfortunate part. Although it is nice he actually saves Harry's life and he actually needs him to (in the Chamber of Secrets, he kept trying to get Harry kicked out of Hogwarts because he overhears from the Malfoys something terrible will happen)... it's a minor nitpick, but I hate that his animation is completely different from the previous movie. I don't know, I just really like continuity with how characters look. When I go into the Twilight movies, I'll REALLY have a field day with that.
A few more funny things from this particular viewing...
The moment where Harry says in the Ministry of Magic (he and Hermione are disguised as employees using Polyjuice Potion) that if they don't find Umbridge in an hour, they'll come back another day... and a second later she shows up at the elevator, I screamed :P it's been so long since I'd seen it I totally forgot it was that moment. Plus, I really don't like her. Major ick factor.
I also noticed that the number 7 came up a lot in the series... just a random observation. My mom asked me how many Harrys there were when the Order was getting him to the safe house and half of his friends took Polyjuice potions to become decoys. (So funny when Fred and George said "look, we're identical"... their voices coming out of Daniel Radcliffe kinda reminded me of Merry and Pippin from Lord of the Rings, cuz Harry is a lot shorter than they are and just their accents. Plus they're all comic relief characters). I somehow remembered the chapter said there was 7, but I said it was called "the seven Harrys"... it was called the "seven Potters"... close enough, I say.
Plus there are 7 Horcruxes and 7 Weasley siblings (also, I know he didn't really have a part to play in the story, but it kinda sucks we never got to meet Charlie Weasley, Ron's brother who studies dragons in Romania) and I remembered just now that Harry's Quidditch uniform has the #7 on it. Oh, and there are 7 players on a Quidditch team.
I know it's not the most original number to use everywhere (Prince has SEVERAL songs that mention the number 7... including one just called "7"), but I just thought that was a fun/funny observation.
Wow, my Harry nerdom really does show in these posts :P
Also two things I noticed were recurring themes in this movie... but they were only referred to once in the second movie and that was when they were actually useful... the shard of the mirror Sirius had given Harry and Harry had used to it to call for help and got Dobby (he finds out who was actually behind it in the next movie) and there's the Snitch Harry got from Dumbledore's will. It shows up throughout the movie, flying around and he sees the words "I open at the close" on it. But by the time it shows up in the last movie, you completely forget that he has it... I just find that a little odd. But that's what happens when you have two separate movies.
Unless of course you play them back to back... which we did once before... the reason it took so long to do this was because my mom refuses to watch this movie unless we see the second half soon afterwards, whether it's hours or days...
so now it's time to watch the last Harry Potter movie and put an end to all this... sadly, but it must be done.
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Mrs. Weasley- Julie Walters
Mr. Weasley- Mark Williams
Mad-Eye Moody- Brendan Gleeson
Fleur DeLaCoeur- Cleménce Poésy
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Dolores Umbridge- Imelda Stanton
[newcomers]
Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeor- Bill Nighy
Bill Weasley- Domnhall Gleeson (in case you didn't make the connection, fun fact- he's Mad Eye's son IRL... he'd also since shown up in the Star Wars movies as an Empire commander who gets made fun of a lot by the other characters, good and bad)
Xenophilius Lovegood- Rhys Ifans
Mundungus Fletcher- Andy Linden
Yaxley- Peter Mullan
...it's really hard trying to figure out who I should and shouldn't include... there's so many people in this movie, but few with really big roles.
Notable Nominations:
Art Direction and Visual Effects
Write-up:
Opening Comments
Wow, my last post from this series was in 2016... I don't think I'd seen any of the movies except maybe the Chamber of Secrets and Fantastic Beasts since then. I think it's also the first time I'd seen any of the movies since we actually went to Harry Potter in Universal Studios. That was one tremendous nerdgasm, just seeing all this stuff from the movies. Hogsmeade Village and Diagon Alley as well as so many tourists in costume and robes. It's almost like it's Comic-Con there every day and it is awesome. (Also, very expensive). We went through Hogwarts Castle and were unknowingly whisked off to a ride where we had to escape the castle. Our feet were dangling and we were thrown forward and backwards and the visuals varied between actual set design and a movie where we zipped through the Quidditch pitch and around the castle. My mom keeps saying she loved it, but it half scared the crap out of me and my sister. I literally blinked my way through the times we were moving because a) it was a little too much of a rush and b) it was kinda terrifying and I thought maybe I'd throw up a couple times. But the times we were still or laying on our backs, just looking at the scenery around us. We saw spiders, dementors and the Hungarian Horntail. The dragon and its breath were AWESOME. The spiders and dementors... :shudder: both creepy. At least with the dementor, I tried to think happy thoughts because that's how you defeat them. Yep, I'm a true Potter head :P
We also ate true British cuisine at the Hogsmeade Pub and had Butterbeer... so good! We also saw some girls dressed like they went to Madame Maxime's Academy of Magic. As for souvenirs, I got a T-shirt, a Ravenclaw scarf (cuz I like blue... although I may have fit into that house... I took the quiz at Pottermore and it actually put me in Slytherin... in my defense, so was Merlin and he wasn't a bad wizard), and a time-turner. And the cashier was great, saying for me not to use the time-turner to take more money out of my band account. He was totally in character and it was awesome.
Oh and we also saw Grimmauld Place on the street... which brings me back to this movie. The film does spend some time there, but seeing it again after having been there last October... oh man, that was great.
Now for the actual movie...
It was a 2-part movie and this is part one. For Harry Potter, this was definitely justified because both halves revolve around two different settings. Part One is basically Harry, Ron and Hermione on the run, trying to figure out how to find Horcruxes (objects that contain pieces of Voldemort's soul) and destroy them. And Part Two is essentially "the Battle of Hogwarts." Where they decided to split the two movies couldn't have been more perfect.
Spoilers Ahead...Read the Books!
Adaptation
For starters, I'll say that I think I'd read this book three times EVER. Once was when we first got it... I remember that my mom and dad were off to Vegas July 2007. Sometime when they were away, I watched Under the Cherry Moon for the first time (and my sister walked in a couple of times and said there was too much kissing in the movie... and Prince isn't the best on-screen kisser, I don't think anyway). And when they came back, my mom came with the book. She bought it at the airport and was reading it on the plane, as was another passenger and they briefly talked about being fans and such.
I remember my experience reading the book and how we took turns with it. The first hundred or so pages was agonizing because nothing was happening. So when this movie was split up, I initially thought that a lot of this book could have been shrunk down to fit into one movie. But after seeing the end result, I'm happy with how they did it.
As for transferring the book to the actual movie, most of it was done well. I wish they kept the scene where Harry and his cousin Dudley have their final goodbyes because it was kinda of a big moment in the book. A bit of a payoff after all those years where Dudley and his friends bullied him.
The story kept pace pretty well and they montaged a lot of stuff that should have been montaged in the actual book, lol. We watched it last night and I felt like the movie zipped by really fast. It's 2 hours and 13 minutes and it really didn't drag. Maybe because I spent half of the movie noticing little things I hadn't before or that I was actively questioning stuff. You know, nerding out.
For the most part, I think the story followed the book really well and not much was changed too much where I could complain about it.
One new thing I noticed was at Malfoy Manor at the beginning. Voldemort is practically having a Council of Evil dinner party and they're discussing finding/killing Harry when he's being shuttled to a safe house. At the table, there were a couple of characters I didn't pay much attention to until now. This was this guy Yaxley that nearly catches up with Harry and his friends when they infiltrate the Ministry of Magic and I thought it was weird that Hermione knew his name, but I had no idea who he was or why he was after them. Seeing him at this dinner party, I totally get the connection. And the guy that Voldemort says spoke "like a true politician"- he becomes the new Minister of Magic.
Oh yeah... Rufus Scrimgeour is the new Minister of Magic that was elected after Fudge had to resign at the end of the Order of the Phoenix. He was elected in the 6th book and actually meets Harry where he tries to get him to help the Minister renew their image or mend relations with him after they spent the previous book tarnishing his image. Harry, of course, declines and lets him have it. In this movie, we're meeting him for the first time. A little nit-pick, I know, but I thought it was a little too much when we start the movie with him giving a speech and the camera is staring at his eyes... a little TOO close there, Mr. Director!
He shows up at the Weasley House to read Dumbledore's Will (I remember how this was one of the first three scenes we got to see before the movie came out) and bequeaths three random objects to the three main characters and ultimately says "I don't know what you plan to do, but you can't do this alone"... then next we hear about him, he gets killed by Death Eaters and the Ministry has fallen...
The movie starts on a bit of a sad note because Hermione wipes her parents' memories of her. I remember watching through this YouTube series, Cinema Sins, where they nitpick movies endlessly. Half of their Harry Potter nitpicks were things that were EXPLAINED IN THE BOOKS so I thought they were completely stupid. The other half is Deus Ex Machina, a literary device where things are conveniently placed in the books because they explain/resolve things later in the plot. One example is in Chamber of Secrets where Herbology happens to be teaching everyone about Mandrakes the same year Mudbloods are getting petrified and juice made from them is the cure. It's something that does happen a lot in the Harry Potter books, but so what... so as much as I like watching Cinema Sins, the guy behind it sounds like an ignorant jerk... I guess you could call it a guilty pleasure cuz I'd watched a bunch of these videos.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make... he got one thing right... when Hermione wipes her parents' memories, she also erases her picture from all the picture frames. His comment was "won't Hermione's parents think it's strange they have a lot of blank picture frames in their house"... I get why she did it. Cuz if the Death Eaters find them and who they are, they'd probably torture them with the Cruciatus Curse and drive them incurably insane.
We do get a little story process when Harry and the other two stay at Grimmauld Place and learn who R.A.B. is. He left a note inside the locket Harry and Dumbledore retrieved in the previous movie, saying the locket is a fake and he plans to destroy the real Horcrux. Having inherited Grimmauld Place and Kreaker the house-elf from Sirius, Harry's able to compel Kreaker to tell him where the locket is. Mundungus Fletcher barely has any screen time, but we at least give him hell for running away when the Death Eaters attack the Order when they're transferring Harry to the safe house. It's because he ran that Mad-Eye Moody got killed.
But wouldn't you know it- the Ministry person he sold the locket was OUR Undesirable #1, former Professor Umbridge. I can understand why J.K. Rowling brought her back (she was disgraced and fired after her actions in the 5th book) in this book because who else to be in charge of the Muggle Registry... someone who thinks she knows better than everyone else and passive-aggressively tells muggle-borns that they can't be witches or wizards because they have no magic blood. Voldemort has always preferred purebloods above all others, but his policies really do hit home when we see all the propaganda the Ministry is sending out.
I could talk more on politics and who Umbridge reminds me of, but I've got better things to do.
While the movie is pretty dang serious through most of it, it's nice to have some of the Weasleys as comic relief. George gets injured the night of Harry's transfer and he comes up with the perfect line to make the seriousness of it go away. And later Ron has a couple of funny lines as well. That kinda makes up for the fact he turns into a jerk halfway through the movie and leaves because (shock horror) Harry has no idea how to find or destroy the Horcruxes. I thought Ron was a bit of a jerk in the Goblet of Fire after Harry is chosen to be in the Triwizard tournament, but this was over the top. But I guess if someone had to leave, he would... it also brings up a good talking point that the fandom had talked about for years. About why Harry and Hermione didn't end up together because they seem to be a good fit. I think J.K. Rowling came out and said she wanted to put Harry and Hermione together as well, but doing so would have taken Ron out of the picture entirely. Although looking at the actual quote where she says Ron/Hermione was "wish fulfillment"... I don't quite understand what she means by that. The article I read tried to explain that, but never gets anywhere.
But Ron has had issues for years being in the shadow of all his brothers as well as the great Harry Potter, so it makes sense that this would come to a head here of all places. There was a scene in the movie that was new and it was a nice addition. Hermione is depressed when Ron leaves and Harry tries to cheer her up by dancing with her to something on the radio.
My favorite scene of the whole movie is in Godric's Hollow where Harry wants to see where his parents are buried and it's where Bathilda Bagshot lives. She apparently was interviewed by Rita Skeeter for a new book (a smear piece on Dumbledore and his private life... she's still at, unfortunately... in the 4th book, Hermione does inevitably catch up with her and threatens to out her as an illegal Animagus if she doesn't stop with the swear pieces... it was left out of the movies, but considering this storyline, it kinda makes sense that it was left out). Anyway, Harry thinks it might be another lead towards a Horcrux.
Just the moment where it's snowing on Christmas Eve and Harry and Hermione are looking over the Potters' headstone... it was really solemn and sweet and sad all at the same time.
The way Ron ultimately comes back, maybe there were too many coincidences thrown together to make it work, but I honestly don't care. But him talking about this little ball of light that comes out of the Deluminator, goes into his heart and takes him to where Harry and Hermione are... I vaguely remember at the Oscars that they made fun, trying to make it sound like he's singing about this little ball of light. They did that with other movies too, but that one always stuck with me LOL
Another great scene is where they see Luna's dad about this symbol sees in her Beedle the Bard book (another thing from Dumbledore's will) and at the Peverell grave in Godric's Hollow. Three guesses what the symbol is... it's in the title...
Anyway, Hermione reads this story about the Three Brothers, which is about the Deathly Hallows. They choose to animate it. Not only is it a compelling story and Hermione is a great reader... but just the way it is animated... I got so sucked in that I was enchanted for the rest of the movie. It's REALLY well done. No doubt that's the reason this movie was nominated for two Oscars... beat by Inception and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
The remainder of the movie is pretty dramatic, though...
Harry and the others get caught by Snatchers (who work with the Ministry to round up Muggleborns with winds) and taken to the Malfoys because despite a stinging jinx Hermione uses on him, they believe Harry is with them.
Harry and Ron are thrown in the basement and Bellatrix Lestrange tortures Hermione, thinking they stole the sword of Gryffindor from her Gringotts Vault. According to IMDB, a lot of it was cut out because it would have pushed for a more mature rating. It was that bad. And it also says that after the scene was shot, Helena Bonham Carter is extremely apologetic to Emma Watson. The screaming and her expression afterwards really sells it. (She'd carved "mudblood" into her arm).
Throughout the books, Dobby the House-Elf made several appearances since Harry freed in the Chamber of the Secrets. But in the movies, all of the moments where he helped further the plot (giving Harry the gillyweed for the 2nd task at the Triwizard tournament and locating the Room of Requirement for Dumbledore's Army to meet) were given to Neville. I don't disagree with giving Neville more screen time to do something other than getting jinxed... but I just thought it was lazy on their part cuz they didn't want to spend time on that animation.
Dobby finally returns and of course it's for the last time... that's the really unfortunate part. Although it is nice he actually saves Harry's life and he actually needs him to (in the Chamber of Secrets, he kept trying to get Harry kicked out of Hogwarts because he overhears from the Malfoys something terrible will happen)... it's a minor nitpick, but I hate that his animation is completely different from the previous movie. I don't know, I just really like continuity with how characters look. When I go into the Twilight movies, I'll REALLY have a field day with that.
A few more funny things from this particular viewing...
The moment where Harry says in the Ministry of Magic (he and Hermione are disguised as employees using Polyjuice Potion) that if they don't find Umbridge in an hour, they'll come back another day... and a second later she shows up at the elevator, I screamed :P it's been so long since I'd seen it I totally forgot it was that moment. Plus, I really don't like her. Major ick factor.
I also noticed that the number 7 came up a lot in the series... just a random observation. My mom asked me how many Harrys there were when the Order was getting him to the safe house and half of his friends took Polyjuice potions to become decoys. (So funny when Fred and George said "look, we're identical"... their voices coming out of Daniel Radcliffe kinda reminded me of Merry and Pippin from Lord of the Rings, cuz Harry is a lot shorter than they are and just their accents. Plus they're all comic relief characters). I somehow remembered the chapter said there was 7, but I said it was called "the seven Harrys"... it was called the "seven Potters"... close enough, I say.
Plus there are 7 Horcruxes and 7 Weasley siblings (also, I know he didn't really have a part to play in the story, but it kinda sucks we never got to meet Charlie Weasley, Ron's brother who studies dragons in Romania) and I remembered just now that Harry's Quidditch uniform has the #7 on it. Oh, and there are 7 players on a Quidditch team.
I know it's not the most original number to use everywhere (Prince has SEVERAL songs that mention the number 7... including one just called "7"), but I just thought that was a fun/funny observation.
Wow, my Harry nerdom really does show in these posts :P
Also two things I noticed were recurring themes in this movie... but they were only referred to once in the second movie and that was when they were actually useful... the shard of the mirror Sirius had given Harry and Harry had used to it to call for help and got Dobby (he finds out who was actually behind it in the next movie) and there's the Snitch Harry got from Dumbledore's will. It shows up throughout the movie, flying around and he sees the words "I open at the close" on it. But by the time it shows up in the last movie, you completely forget that he has it... I just find that a little odd. But that's what happens when you have two separate movies.
Unless of course you play them back to back... which we did once before... the reason it took so long to do this was because my mom refuses to watch this movie unless we see the second half soon afterwards, whether it's hours or days...
so now it's time to watch the last Harry Potter movie and put an end to all this... sadly, but it must be done.
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Theatrical Review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Date- Sunday November 20 2016
Time- 1:15pm
Location- Pocono Movieplex (honestly, we go there all the time... I should just leave this field unchecked unless I'm going elsewhere)
Party- 4 (my mom, sister, aunt who loves the same books/movies, and myself)
Director: David Yates
Writer (book AND screenplay): J.K. Rowling
Composer: James Newton Howard
Notable Cast:
Newt Scamander- Eddie Redmayne
Jacob Kowalski- Dan Fogler
Tina- Katherine Waterston
Queenie- Alison Sudol
Graves- Colin Farrell
Credence- Ezra Miller
American Minister of Magic, Seraphina Picquery- Carmen Ejogo
Duration: 133 minutes (+3 trailers)
Write-up:
Audience & Coming Attractions
The next time we go to the movies (which will be later today), we need to bring a flashlight or at least light up a smartphone when we enter the theater. It's getting kind of annoying that we can't see where we're going or which seats are taken because the theater is darkened to show a dozen commercials. Seriously, if I want to see commercials, I could just stay home.
Couldn't even see how many people were in the theater, but there weren't as many as we expected. It was miserable and raining outside at the time.
It seemed like all three trailers figured we were all into Sci-fi (almost spelled that like the network... I don't even watch it that much) because they all fell into that category. I didn't even think Harry Potter fit there (it's more of a fantasy type deal, isn't it?).
First: Valerian- which is based on a graphic novel. I recognized Cat Delevingne from "Paper Towns." (Not quite who I pictured to play Margo Roth Speigelman, but she grew on me pretty quickly). The other guy, not so much. But the trailer promoted it more as a Luc Besson film (since he recently had a lot of success with "Lucy" which I've yet to see, but might need to).
The special effects and the environment look amazing. Not quite at the "Avatar" level, but the closest I'd seen in a while. Unfortunately, I have a gut feeling it's going to do about as well as "Jupiter Ascending."
Second: Ghost in the Shell, starring Scarlett Johansson. I'd heard of the animé series it was based off, but I never watched. It seemed too dark and too sci-fi for my personal tastes (just to give a clearer picture of my tastes- InuYasha, FullMetal Alchemist and Bleach were my favorite series on Adult Swim).
But the way this movie is set up and rendered, it looks really impressive. And Scarlett of course playing a kick-ass bad-ass. Something she brought to Black Widow and "Lucy" (yep, that Luc Besson movie I just mentioned) and may have perfected here.
I also remember the major controversy with this movie for casting her because she isn't Asian.
:sigh: will it ever end?
Finally, the trailer Comic-Con probably saw of the new "Power Rangers" movie.
I grew up on that franchise... well, 2-3 years of my childhood was wrapped up in it... I think I got into Pokémon shortly after I lost interest (which was when David Yost was written out of the show- he played my favorite character).
And I get the feeling that I am going to hate this movie because it's going to rewrite the entire mythology of the franchise. Two characters, I heard called Jason and Zack. And it sounds like they found the Command Center and Zordon instead of the other way around. Not to mention they're all "bad kids." That's completely wrong. The Power Rangers were chosen by Zordon because they were exceptional teenagers that were active in their communities. Unless they're opting for the angle "they're good inside, but have just gotten a raw deal in life"... I don't buy it.
Speaking of race, it looks like they might be doing that thing that got an outcry with the original series- the Black ranger was black and the yellow ranger was Asian. Honestly, I didn't really notice that when I was a kid and it really doesn't matter to me either way.
I remember the names of all the original actors except the Yellow ranger, Trini. Only that she died in a car accident. I know how to pronounce it, but I'll probably spell it wrong. Truy Thang, I think. [okay, I was close- I got two letters mixed up in her name- Thuy Trang].
Quick note: IMDB is great for a lot of things, but I don't get how they know the last names of the characters (when they were never mentioned on the show, yet they don't know Zack was the Black ranger and Trini was the yellow ranger).
Anyway, they lost me after they did an entire recast... end of story.
The Main Event in a Nutshell
What you need to know about the basic story: Newt Scamander is a British Magizoologist (studies magical creatures) who travels to America in the 1920's to release one of his magical creatures to its native habitat in Arizona.
But he picks a pretty bad time to go. New York is currently under siege thanks to something dark and destructive. What that is remains to be seen. But it's been terrorizing the Nomaj (American muggles) and the magical world is trying to solve the problem before their world is exposed and comes under fire. It is believed to be the work of a dark creature, which automatically makes Newt the #1 suspect.
Actors and Actresses
I don't know if I imagined the success Eddie Redmayne what have in his career after being in "Les Mis"... but it's been pretty fantastic. His performance of Stephen Hawking, while it was SO obvious he was going to win... I know the man is a super genius, but I gained so much more respect for him after seeing the movie. And he is great in this one as well. There were just some time I wish I had subtitles. He kinda mumbles sometimes, you see.
Dan Fogler, I knew from "Fan Boys" and it's cool to see him in a role like this. The man isn't obnoxious. He's just a lovable Nomaj that is having trouble getting his dream of owning a bakery. He meets Newt at the bank where he's trying to get a loan, but can't due to lack of collateral. He unwittingly becomes part of this journey into the magical world due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not to mention a "comedy" of errors.
The actresses, I hadn't really known before this, so I don't have much to say for them. Tina (Katherine Waterston) had gotten Hermione comparisons. Some of it is well-deserved. She's very smart and calculating. But her talents aren't taken as seriously due to actions taken before the movie begins.
Queenie is a bit of a scene-stealer and her storyline with Jacob is one I hope gets continued in future movies, despite the fact Nomaj are not supposed to be knowlegeable about the magical world. He's just such a great character.
Colin Farrell, I'd had a lot of moments on this blog where I've given him a hard time. My only complaint with him... he's Irish and he's playing an American character. Seriously, what the hell?! He plays a pretty complex character in that you really don't know what side he's on. We see him in the alleyway a lot talking to Credence, the adopted son of a woman who's been trying to organize a witch hunt.
Credence is played by Ezra Miller, who I know from "Perks of Being a Wallflower"... this was a good role for him, although a pretty sad one. He gets a raw deal and it extends past the fact his mum abuses him.
Same World, But a Different Place and Time
David Yates directed the last four Harry Potter movies and did so very well. We have the same visual look here as well, but considering it's New York in the 1920's, it's a bit different. But an interesting good different.
Visual and Special Effects
My other big negative with this movie... the effects are too chaotic in the action scenes. This is a good movie to see on the big screen, but it was still hard to see what was going on.
As for the contents of Newt's suitcase... well, you have to see it to believe it. It's the most jaw-dropping moment I think I'd had out of all the Harry Potter movies and there was a lot of that back then.
The first creature we meet is a Niffer. It looks like a black roly-poly platypus with maybe some echidna-like spines. I think I heard Ron mentioned in one of the books that he'd like to have one because they're good at finding treasures and shiny things. The one Newt has in his suitcase escapes into a bank, so you can imagine the shenanigans it gets into there. Everything else- I don't remember what any of them are called (like I said, Newt mumbles), but they're just amazing to look at. Hopefully we'll get to see more of them in the upcoming films.
What the Future holds...
I was skeptical at first when I heard that this movie adapted from a Hogwarts textbook was going to be make into a five-movie franchise. But taking into account who the ultimate villain of this movie turned out to be, I have a very good feeling I know what the ultimate goal of this new magical franchise is... and there is one very important casting choice coming up.
I'm sure a lot of Harry Potter fans have already figured it out.
Let's just say I got my idea from a Chocolate Frog card..
Grade: A-
(just to give an idea- I'd give "The Sorceror's Stone" an A+, "Prisoner of Azkhaban" an A, and the "Order of the Phoenix" maybe a B+)
Time- 1:15pm
Location- Pocono Movieplex (honestly, we go there all the time... I should just leave this field unchecked unless I'm going elsewhere)
Party- 4 (my mom, sister, aunt who loves the same books/movies, and myself)
Director: David Yates
Writer (book AND screenplay): J.K. Rowling
Composer: James Newton Howard
Notable Cast:
Newt Scamander- Eddie Redmayne
Jacob Kowalski- Dan Fogler
Tina- Katherine Waterston
Queenie- Alison Sudol
Graves- Colin Farrell
Credence- Ezra Miller
American Minister of Magic, Seraphina Picquery- Carmen Ejogo
Duration: 133 minutes (+3 trailers)
Write-up:
Audience & Coming Attractions
The next time we go to the movies (which will be later today), we need to bring a flashlight or at least light up a smartphone when we enter the theater. It's getting kind of annoying that we can't see where we're going or which seats are taken because the theater is darkened to show a dozen commercials. Seriously, if I want to see commercials, I could just stay home.
Couldn't even see how many people were in the theater, but there weren't as many as we expected. It was miserable and raining outside at the time.
It seemed like all three trailers figured we were all into Sci-fi (almost spelled that like the network... I don't even watch it that much) because they all fell into that category. I didn't even think Harry Potter fit there (it's more of a fantasy type deal, isn't it?).
First: Valerian- which is based on a graphic novel. I recognized Cat Delevingne from "Paper Towns." (Not quite who I pictured to play Margo Roth Speigelman, but she grew on me pretty quickly). The other guy, not so much. But the trailer promoted it more as a Luc Besson film (since he recently had a lot of success with "Lucy" which I've yet to see, but might need to).
The special effects and the environment look amazing. Not quite at the "Avatar" level, but the closest I'd seen in a while. Unfortunately, I have a gut feeling it's going to do about as well as "Jupiter Ascending."
Second: Ghost in the Shell, starring Scarlett Johansson. I'd heard of the animé series it was based off, but I never watched. It seemed too dark and too sci-fi for my personal tastes (just to give a clearer picture of my tastes- InuYasha, FullMetal Alchemist and Bleach were my favorite series on Adult Swim).
But the way this movie is set up and rendered, it looks really impressive. And Scarlett of course playing a kick-ass bad-ass. Something she brought to Black Widow and "Lucy" (yep, that Luc Besson movie I just mentioned) and may have perfected here.
I also remember the major controversy with this movie for casting her because she isn't Asian.
:sigh: will it ever end?
Finally, the trailer Comic-Con probably saw of the new "Power Rangers" movie.
I grew up on that franchise... well, 2-3 years of my childhood was wrapped up in it... I think I got into Pokémon shortly after I lost interest (which was when David Yost was written out of the show- he played my favorite character).
And I get the feeling that I am going to hate this movie because it's going to rewrite the entire mythology of the franchise. Two characters, I heard called Jason and Zack. And it sounds like they found the Command Center and Zordon instead of the other way around. Not to mention they're all "bad kids." That's completely wrong. The Power Rangers were chosen by Zordon because they were exceptional teenagers that were active in their communities. Unless they're opting for the angle "they're good inside, but have just gotten a raw deal in life"... I don't buy it.
Speaking of race, it looks like they might be doing that thing that got an outcry with the original series- the Black ranger was black and the yellow ranger was Asian. Honestly, I didn't really notice that when I was a kid and it really doesn't matter to me either way.
I remember the names of all the original actors except the Yellow ranger, Trini. Only that she died in a car accident. I know how to pronounce it, but I'll probably spell it wrong. Truy Thang, I think. [okay, I was close- I got two letters mixed up in her name- Thuy Trang].
Quick note: IMDB is great for a lot of things, but I don't get how they know the last names of the characters (when they were never mentioned on the show, yet they don't know Zack was the Black ranger and Trini was the yellow ranger).
Anyway, they lost me after they did an entire recast... end of story.
The Main Event in a Nutshell
What you need to know about the basic story: Newt Scamander is a British Magizoologist (studies magical creatures) who travels to America in the 1920's to release one of his magical creatures to its native habitat in Arizona.
But he picks a pretty bad time to go. New York is currently under siege thanks to something dark and destructive. What that is remains to be seen. But it's been terrorizing the Nomaj (American muggles) and the magical world is trying to solve the problem before their world is exposed and comes under fire. It is believed to be the work of a dark creature, which automatically makes Newt the #1 suspect.
Actors and Actresses
I don't know if I imagined the success Eddie Redmayne what have in his career after being in "Les Mis"... but it's been pretty fantastic. His performance of Stephen Hawking, while it was SO obvious he was going to win... I know the man is a super genius, but I gained so much more respect for him after seeing the movie. And he is great in this one as well. There were just some time I wish I had subtitles. He kinda mumbles sometimes, you see.
Dan Fogler, I knew from "Fan Boys" and it's cool to see him in a role like this. The man isn't obnoxious. He's just a lovable Nomaj that is having trouble getting his dream of owning a bakery. He meets Newt at the bank where he's trying to get a loan, but can't due to lack of collateral. He unwittingly becomes part of this journey into the magical world due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not to mention a "comedy" of errors.
The actresses, I hadn't really known before this, so I don't have much to say for them. Tina (Katherine Waterston) had gotten Hermione comparisons. Some of it is well-deserved. She's very smart and calculating. But her talents aren't taken as seriously due to actions taken before the movie begins.
Queenie is a bit of a scene-stealer and her storyline with Jacob is one I hope gets continued in future movies, despite the fact Nomaj are not supposed to be knowlegeable about the magical world. He's just such a great character.
Colin Farrell, I'd had a lot of moments on this blog where I've given him a hard time. My only complaint with him... he's Irish and he's playing an American character. Seriously, what the hell?! He plays a pretty complex character in that you really don't know what side he's on. We see him in the alleyway a lot talking to Credence, the adopted son of a woman who's been trying to organize a witch hunt.
Credence is played by Ezra Miller, who I know from "Perks of Being a Wallflower"... this was a good role for him, although a pretty sad one. He gets a raw deal and it extends past the fact his mum abuses him.
Same World, But a Different Place and Time
David Yates directed the last four Harry Potter movies and did so very well. We have the same visual look here as well, but considering it's New York in the 1920's, it's a bit different. But an interesting good different.
Visual and Special Effects
My other big negative with this movie... the effects are too chaotic in the action scenes. This is a good movie to see on the big screen, but it was still hard to see what was going on.
As for the contents of Newt's suitcase... well, you have to see it to believe it. It's the most jaw-dropping moment I think I'd had out of all the Harry Potter movies and there was a lot of that back then.
The first creature we meet is a Niffer. It looks like a black roly-poly platypus with maybe some echidna-like spines. I think I heard Ron mentioned in one of the books that he'd like to have one because they're good at finding treasures and shiny things. The one Newt has in his suitcase escapes into a bank, so you can imagine the shenanigans it gets into there. Everything else- I don't remember what any of them are called (like I said, Newt mumbles), but they're just amazing to look at. Hopefully we'll get to see more of them in the upcoming films.
What the Future holds...
I was skeptical at first when I heard that this movie adapted from a Hogwarts textbook was going to be make into a five-movie franchise. But taking into account who the ultimate villain of this movie turned out to be, I have a very good feeling I know what the ultimate goal of this new magical franchise is... and there is one very important casting choice coming up.
I'm sure a lot of Harry Potter fans have already figured it out.
Let's just say I got my idea from a Chocolate Frog card..
Grade: A-
(just to give an idea- I'd give "The Sorceror's Stone" an A+, "Prisoner of Azkhaban" an A, and the "Order of the Phoenix" maybe a B+)
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