Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Jul. 12th, 2007 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenSo, in a quite unprecedented spurt of organisation, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hathy_col and I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix tonight. Much like when we went to see PoA, we quite possibly terrified everyone we were sitting by, especially in this case by talking about Kirk and Spock and, er, whales during the adverts, and zombies, aliens and Triffids during the trailers.
It must be said before I go on: I liked this movie. Overall I still like PoA better, but that's because I like that book better. This is, in itself, a good film - thankfully the first two are now a distant memory - and its flaws tend to be those the source material has. Naturally, it has the same old problem wbere the book is six hundred pages long and they have to get everything shoehorned in somehow. It's no one's fault it can seem rushed, it was going to feel like that regardless.
Stuff I liked particularly:
-Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood. I never liked Luna much in the books, or rather, I never thought about her much, but suddenly I love her and it's all in the acting. She's played so well: so sweet and slightly loopy, and the Irish accent really works.
-Sirius. Gary Oldman is effortless; I always take it as a given that yes, he is Sirius and that's all there is to it. And Padfoot was lovely - just the right amount of scruffy stray.
-The way they handled the exposition. Some of it is a bit clunky, but the end, the prophecy, the Department of Mysteries, Dumbledore's explanation - it's slick, it makes sense, I actually like it better than the book, which drags it along far longer than necessary.
And the scene where Harry is possessed by Voldemort on the floor, the flashes in his mind - I like that. It makes a perfect sort of sense, and so does the switch to Lily and James, Ron and Hermione, and I was quietly grinning myself in the dark, because the whole scene, it works.
-Names. Dumbledore calls Voldemort "Tom", a detail I'm delight was left in, but, also, also, Sirius calls Harry "James"! And it's so fucked-up, and his death means it never gets resolved, and oh... love.
-The happy-family scene with Harry, Sirius and Remus framed by the doorway was one I loved initially, but as I gleefully pointed out tohathy_col when we were searching the car park for Starbug, it appears not once, not twice, but thrice in the movie. Bless. And there's the darker twist to the same dynamic, of course, and how they did that scene, the one where Remus holds Harry back from going after Sirius through the veil, was something I really wanted to see. It's done heartbreakingly well, with Harry and Remus broken in different ways, and it's Remus we see for that final moment, lost, before Harry heads off into the dark. I approve.
-Bellatrix Lestrange. Oh, perfect acting again - babyish and creepy and fucked-up and awesome. In fact, you run out of time and space to detail the awesome, so, yes, she was awesome, and so were Fred and George, and so was Nigel, whoever the hell he was, and Neville was more awesome than awesome.
That was disappointing, though, and something else Colleen and I noted driving home - that we didn't see the scene where he visits his parents. It's a very dark place in the book - oh, Neville, visiting his parents who don't even recognise him. Of the few quibbles I had, that was one. Among others: Tonks and Remus were underused, and they missed out my favourite scene in the book: the bit where McGonagall tells Peeves that the chandelier "unscrews the other way!"
Minor quibbles, though. This was good. And finally, the scene where we see Voldemort on the station platform in the snappy black suit - I leaned over to Colleen and whispered, "You cannot possibly think that's hot."
She took entirely too long to reply. "I'm going to hell."
"The special hell," I agreed. "Child molestors, people who talk at the theatre, and you."
I guess we should also include people like me, i.e., people who say, "Sirius dies!" in the crowded cinema before the film's even started. It was an honest accident - for some reason it didn't even occur to me that there might have been people who didn't know that - and oh, spoilers. Nine more days. Oh, my.
hathy_col and I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix tonight. Much like when we went to see PoA, we quite possibly terrified everyone we were sitting by, especially in this case by talking about Kirk and Spock and, er, whales during the adverts, and zombies, aliens and Triffids during the trailers.It must be said before I go on: I liked this movie. Overall I still like PoA better, but that's because I like that book better. This is, in itself, a good film - thankfully the first two are now a distant memory - and its flaws tend to be those the source material has. Naturally, it has the same old problem wbere the book is six hundred pages long and they have to get everything shoehorned in somehow. It's no one's fault it can seem rushed, it was going to feel like that regardless.
Stuff I liked particularly:
-Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood. I never liked Luna much in the books, or rather, I never thought about her much, but suddenly I love her and it's all in the acting. She's played so well: so sweet and slightly loopy, and the Irish accent really works.
-Sirius. Gary Oldman is effortless; I always take it as a given that yes, he is Sirius and that's all there is to it. And Padfoot was lovely - just the right amount of scruffy stray.
-The way they handled the exposition. Some of it is a bit clunky, but the end, the prophecy, the Department of Mysteries, Dumbledore's explanation - it's slick, it makes sense, I actually like it better than the book, which drags it along far longer than necessary.
And the scene where Harry is possessed by Voldemort on the floor, the flashes in his mind - I like that. It makes a perfect sort of sense, and so does the switch to Lily and James, Ron and Hermione, and I was quietly grinning myself in the dark, because the whole scene, it works.
-Names. Dumbledore calls Voldemort "Tom", a detail I'm delight was left in, but, also, also, Sirius calls Harry "James"! And it's so fucked-up, and his death means it never gets resolved, and oh... love.
-The happy-family scene with Harry, Sirius and Remus framed by the doorway was one I loved initially, but as I gleefully pointed out to
hathy_col when we were searching the car park for Starbug, it appears not once, not twice, but thrice in the movie. Bless. And there's the darker twist to the same dynamic, of course, and how they did that scene, the one where Remus holds Harry back from going after Sirius through the veil, was something I really wanted to see. It's done heartbreakingly well, with Harry and Remus broken in different ways, and it's Remus we see for that final moment, lost, before Harry heads off into the dark. I approve.-Bellatrix Lestrange. Oh, perfect acting again - babyish and creepy and fucked-up and awesome. In fact, you run out of time and space to detail the awesome, so, yes, she was awesome, and so were Fred and George, and so was Nigel, whoever the hell he was, and Neville was more awesome than awesome.
That was disappointing, though, and something else Colleen and I noted driving home - that we didn't see the scene where he visits his parents. It's a very dark place in the book - oh, Neville, visiting his parents who don't even recognise him. Of the few quibbles I had, that was one. Among others: Tonks and Remus were underused, and they missed out my favourite scene in the book: the bit where McGonagall tells Peeves that the chandelier "unscrews the other way!"
Minor quibbles, though. This was good. And finally, the scene where we see Voldemort on the station platform in the snappy black suit - I leaned over to Colleen and whispered, "You cannot possibly think that's hot."
She took entirely too long to reply. "I'm going to hell."
"The special hell," I agreed. "Child molestors, people who talk at the theatre, and you."
I guess we should also include people like me, i.e., people who say, "Sirius dies!" in the crowded cinema before the film's even started. It was an honest accident - for some reason it didn't even occur to me that there might have been people who didn't know that - and oh, spoilers. Nine more days. Oh, my.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2007-07-12 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-14 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-13 02:34 am (UTC)The thing about spoilers -- when we were in line for the midnight first showing of ROTK, there were people who didn't know the end of the story! We boggled a bit and didn't spoil them but it would never have occurred to us that a fifty-year-old book could be spoiled. (And yes, they were fun to watch when Gollum fell in, and some of the teenage boys got all teary at the very end)
no subject
on 2007-07-14 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-13 10:32 am (UTC)would be lovely to go for a coffee (regular or irish) at some point and catch up properly. no point telling me here though as i only have the internet when in pritchards, and won't be now 'til monday, so a text would be great 07854558784 would be the number to contact.
hope all is well x
no subject
on 2007-07-13 04:37 pm (UTC)I. Love. You.
no subject
on 2007-07-14 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2007-07-13 05:27 pm (UTC)The 'Tom' moment was brilliant, as was the 'James'. There was definite Remus/Sirius there, and I am going to ignore everyone who says there wasn't.
[flaps] Starbug? What? I KNEW I should pay more attention to fandom.
no subject
on 2007-07-14 03:38 pm (UTC)Starbug! Colleen's ancient white Skoda, bless its heart.
no subject
on 2007-07-14 03:40 pm (UTC)Dammit.
no subject
on 2007-07-15 06:59 am (UTC)