This is one of those movies where people either see it (reviews be damned) or you have no plans to see it (because damn those fans!). A review seems pointless. But I finally got around to seeing it, in IMAX no less. Keeping in mind I've only read book 1, but have seen all 6 movies, here is my report:
1. The Plot, or the lack of. Generally, when a movie is over two hours long and costs hundreds of million of dollars and features some of the finest actors of our time in character roles, it should have a plot. This hasn't stopped lots of big budget movies from going plotless (See Fallen, Transformers: Revenge of the ) But with the Harry Potter movies, plot usually hasn't been a problem. E.g.:
Harry Potter 1: We've got to find the Sorcerer's Stone!
Harry Potter 2: We've got to find the Chamber of Secrets!
Harry Potter 3: We've got to stop Gary Oldman from creeping me out!
And so on. There were other complications, but generally the theme was clear in each film. Even the fourth one, with its incoherent plotting, had a general structure of a tournament to keep it in line.
This time, the plot is roughly:
"We've got to get Jim Broadbent to confess to what happened in his modified memory dream while trying to make out with anybody except the people we actually like as much as possible!"
Huh? Wha? Exactly. When you're confused during a Michael Bay movie, that's perfectly normal. When you have no idea what's going on in a Harry Potter movie, you are in trouble. And often during this 153 minute slog, I was very, very confused. Often times, the movie seemed to be spinning its wheels; and when a major riddle was finally answered, it was anti-climactic at best. Speaking of...
2. The Climax, or lack of. For the love of God, if you know full well that a huge stretch of the book later turns out to be a pointless exercise (for the characters), DON'T SPEND A HUGE STRETCH OF MOVIE TIME ON IT. Harry and Dumbledore end up in a cave for reasons that are murky at best, and after what seems like forever, they finally get to an island of glass (or something) that results in Harry force-feeding Dumbledore cursed water (or something.) This goes on quite a bit, ending in a firestorm against little Gollum-type creatures. Then they get back, and after a poorly staged confrontation, it's revealed that everything that just happened was... not important at all. Even Harry Potter 4 had the decency to end with a wizard's duel; all we get here is some pithy comment about the scenery. Grr.
3. Ron Weasley. I'm sorry, I just no longer get the appeal of Ron Weasley. He's a crappy wizard, he's petulant and whiny, he's incredibly dense and his primary purpose seems to be either to get smacked around, say something dumb or to be an insensitive dick. He is always the first to do something stupid and the last to do something brave. Harry and Hermione have outgrown him; and it's no wonder that when Hermione gets all worked up over Ron kissing some other girl, I didn't believe it. Not because Emma Roberts is a bad actress, it's because the boy she's supposedly longing for is such a loser. The book version of Ron may play differently; but by movie six, it's pretty clear that the future holds many, many boring nights ahead for unhappily married Movie Ron and Hermione.
What a dip.
4. Hogwarts 90210. Much too much of this movie is dedicated to wizards sleeping, or rather, making faint comments about possibly sleeping with each other, or who's dating who or who's putting a spell on who. This wouldn't bug me if it was a) funny b) honest or c) important to the plot. Any of the three would do. But these kids seem drained of their rebellious natures that they picked up in 5, and seem only concerned with romances out of Degrassi Jr. High. Romances that consist of no conversations, just googly eyes and slamming doors. Romances that feel fueled by artifice, not real pain or longing. Romances that go out the window for the last 30 minutes, and add very little to the story. Even poor Harry and Ginny are robbed of anything meaningful to say to one another, save for when they get a chance to destroy a cursed book together. Even then, all Harry gets is a kiss; and somehow that equates to a relationship. Not in my high school, it didn't.
5. The X3 Flashback. There is a key flashback where we see a trusted teacher talking to a troubled youth. If you replace "magic" with "mutant," it's pretty much, verbatim, the same conversation that Professor X had with Jean Grey in X3. It also carries the same small amount of weight. Maybe there's just a general problem with scenes showing pure evil at a young age, it is always disappointing. I respect enough people's judgment about J.K. Rowling's books to guess that she does not view magic in the same light as special genetic powers that make cool things happen. The writer Steve Knowles, although he penned the other scripts, seems to have forgotten that. Pity.
I run a special school for mut- wizards....
6. Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman can do anything. He can read from a phone book and make it interesting. He can be so good that you can watch him in Bottle Shock and almost forget that it's a bad movie. But he cannot defeat a screenplay that causes him to reverse everything we know about his character 10 minutes in, and offer no explanation. I am told the book also offers no explanation (at least not until Book 7), but it plays awkwardly. Not as awkwardly as when he exclaims "I am the half blood prince!", but it's still pretty awkward. Don't worry, I didn't spoil anything for you, it doesn't matter who the damn prince is. Grrrrrrr.
7. Luna Lovegood. She's wonderful. She's weird. She's lovely. She's the only kid who seems to operate on a frequency not attuned to the plot, but instead to her own peculiar beat. More of her, please.
She SEEEES YOOOOUUUUUU
8. Villainy, or lack of. This movie is missing some serious heavy lifting in the baddie department. We get no direct shots of Voldermort; and he is missed. We see Helena Bonam Carter being weird, but it's not interesting; we've seen it before. We've seen ominous shots of some younger actor playing Tom Riddle, it's old hat. And while we do get a new villain of sorts- Fenrir Grayback- he doesn't have any lines, and seems more like an afterthought than something to chew on. Only Draco Malfoy, of all people, gets something to do. This is one of the few improvements, although, again, it goes nowhere when he wusses out.
9. The Outside World. Early on, a big deal is made of Voldermort's minions destroying a London city bridge and causing havoc. This, as far as I can tell, has no impact on the story and serves only to supply the editors with some footage of stuff blowing up for the trailer. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
10. The General sense of Wonder. It's gone. Save for a too-brief scene in a magic shop (which occurred just after (!) the damn IMAX 3D stopped working) there is no longer any sense of the impossible, the wonderful, the new or the unreal. Same ol' train, same ol' hogwarts, same ol' general sense of Dumbledore not telling Harry the whole story because otherwise the movie would be over. Gone are the moving staircases, the wonderful talking pictures, lots of little magic happening on the sides. Replacing it is more cryptic brooding and bad sex jokes.
There's no excuse for this. Don't give me that they changed the book. So did 3 and 5. Don't give me that they left stuff out. So did all of the movies. Even 4 had the decent self-respect to pull the action together for some kind of crisis.
The major death in the movie lands with all the impact of a spitball. I've teared up or been devastated for the death (or apparent death) of many a fictional character: Spock, Gandulf, Optimus Prime (in the animated movie), Commissioner Gordon and that dog from I Am Legend. Even if you know it's coming, it's still sad. In Harry Potter 6, I should have wept at the movie's end. Instead, I was relieved, because it meant the movie would be over.
Here is a movie better acted, directed and written than Transformers, Wolverine, Terminator AND the recently-defended-by-me G.I. Joe. Yet it is perhaps the most disappointing. Harry Potter 5 was great, and the same exact people put this together. The book the movie was based on is loved (unlike Harry Potter 5). They had all the resources and some of the best actors out there. They had extra time to edit, because it got pushed back from November to July. They had an audience ready and waiting to be taken on a long journey. And what did they get?
2+ hours of nothing but Jim Broadbent's Crappy Secret and Young Wizards Snogging. Even IMAX can't save that. This is not only the least of the series, it's the final nail in the cinematic coffin that is Summer 2009.
RATING: * * (out of Five)
P.S. If I had to rank the top five mainstream (i.e. not counting 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, etc. ) movies this summer, the list would be 1. UP 2. STAR TREK 3. HANGOVER. There is no four and five, because while I liked G.I. JOE and admired parts of PUBLIC ENEMIES, I refuse to put them on a this list simply because of a default.
P.P.S. There used to be only one movie I had seen that IMAX couldn't improve, namely, the awful POSEIDON. Now there are two. It doesn't help that it only lasts for 20 damn minutes. HULK. SMASH.
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