Movie Review: OoTP

[sarahmichelef]

800 some-odd pages in just 2 1/2 hours?  If you thought that Goblet of Fire was seriously truncated, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  (Or probably, if you’re reading my blogs, you have.)

 

Overall, I thought the movie was satisfying.  It really was pared down to the bare essentials of the plot, though, and the first … 45 minutes?  hour?  felt really REALLY slow and emotionally flat.  When Harry blows up at R&H after arriving at Grimmauld Place and the twins pop down because they heard him yelling?  His voice was hardly raised!!!  I just wasn’t that thrilled with how Dan carried of AngstyHarry, frankly.  The whole thing picked up as the DA got rolling, though, and Imelda Staunton was simply PERFECT as Umbridge.  She had me in stitches from the first “hem hem” until the centaurs dragged her away.

I wasn’t happy that they made Cho into the traitor to the DA because I LIKE Cho, and probably this means that Katie Leung won’t be in either of the last 2 movies.  (*checks IMDB* Nope, doesn’t look like it.)

I really think this one is suffering from coming out SO CLOSE to the release of Deathly Hallows - because all we’ve done is look for clues to what’s going to happen in the book after watching the movie.  We sure as hell were.

Comments

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Cho was exonerated at the end though -- when Snapes says he doesn't have anymore veritas serum because she used it all to question people, including Cho. So....

Yeah, it was good in some ways and not-so in others. sigh. Hope the next one's better.

Oddly, I'm completely uninterested in trying to figure out who's doing what before the last book comes out. Maybe because everyone else has been trying to.... I'm a bit perverse that way :D

[belmikey.livejournal.com]

The beauty of not having actually read the books yet is that I've been able to enjoy the entire movie series so far without distractions :-) From that standpoint, having just seen OoTP last night, I was very pleased with it. I mean, I could still tell that they were compressing a lot (as I could with the previous two films), but since I didn't really know exactly what they were eliding, it didn't really bother me.

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

i wasn't real please with that bit of the cho-story myself, but at least it was forced and not a willful confession. umbridge = so brilliant.

what really pissed me off, though, were the centaurs, who i thought were portrayed as being more like animals than sentient-intelligent beings.

[marajade648.livejournal.com]

I have many thoughts on the movie but I was glad not to have to deal with angsty Harry. He was so annoying in the book; I'm glad he was less so in the movie.

[childsplay7.livejournal.com]

So you doing the midnight run to get the book or did you pre-order it? I have 1/2 a mind to be stupid and go get it on Friday.

[marajade648.livejournal.com]

I just put a copy on reserve at B&N and plan to go pick it up on Saturday whenever its convenient.

[alphasarah.livejournal.com]

M pre-ordered it from Amazon ages and ages ago, when he needed to spend a little bit more money to get super-saver shipping. :^D

[childsplay7.livejournal.com]

Out of all the movies I think I like this one the best but I need to go back and watch #3 - was my favorit so far.