Last night, S. and I went to see the latest installment of Harry Potter on the big screen. With all the hype building up to the movie and the last book that comes out next week, we were greatly anticipating seeing this film. Perhaps our expectations were a bit high, but the movie completely fell flat for us. In a word, it was...disappointing.
I will give the screenwriter and director props for taking the longest book and squeezing it down to a two-and-a-half hour film. But perhaps they should have reconsidered this route...the pacing of the whole movie seemed completely off. At times (particuarly scenes with Umbridge) it drags along and seems to move at a snail's pace. The rest of the time, scenes are so short you don't really get to enjoy anything that's going on and gives no real opportunity to develop characters or relationships. Even in the last scene in which Dumbledore explains to Harry what's been going on the whole year...probably the most critical scene in the book as it truly sets up what happens in the next book...is treated as a passing and mostly irrelevant conversation.
Sure it had its nice moments of flash and fireworks...the battle scenes were cool, but I felt cheated. I felt that it was a poorly done cliff notes version of the book that barely touched on main ideas and themes and rushed through the rest of it.So if you're going to see this film, remember your Harry Hats...because you'll feel fucked afterwards.
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