Review: "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (NO SPOILERS)

Even in Asia, I managed to watch OOTP in English, yay!

For me, the Harry Potter movies have never managed to bring the magic of the books onto the big screen and OOTP was no different. In terms of the plot, as usual, a ton of detail was cut out as more than seven hundred pages was squeezed into about two hours of screen time. Many things were changed to simplify the plot in order to shorten the movie. It wasn't cut down to the point of GOF where the movie did not have a complete plot and was more of a bunch of scenes from the movie stuck together as a companion for fans of the book. At the same time, however, there was so much cut out of OOTP that the magic of Hogwarts: the students, everyday life, Harry's interaction with his friends, etc. The main plot of the Harry Potter books is of course Harry vs Voldemort, but what makes fans everywhere get sucked in is how we can relate to Harry and through him, "live" at Hogwarts and do magic. In the movie, I just couldn't feel that.

I didn't find any part of the movie particularly boring, but at the same time, there wasn't an emotional high point, this left me with a blank feeling when the movie ended: not good. Those of you who have read the book must think that I'm crazy, but its true. The book is packed with emotion with everything that happens but the way the emotional scenes are presented is so cheesy. It felt like something I've seen in a soap opera or a bad movie. I couldn't feel for Harry the way I felt for him in GOF when Cedric died. "Love conquers all" is the basic theme of all the books, but in the movie it was presented in a very lame way that doesn't allow me to feel the message that is presented on screen. It seems like I've already seen the technique that all these scenes are presented in. I, and movie audiences every where, are tired of melodrama.

I didn't find the acting of the three leads particulary spectacular, I didn't see improvement in terms of acting skills, maybe it was because of the faults in the "emotional" scenes. However, I thought that Imelda Staunton did an excellent job playing Dolores Umbridge, all pink and evil like a piece of poisoned taffy. Her actions fits the description of the book perfectly: evil but pretending to be nice at the same time. She didn't over or under act, she made you hate her, but you feel like you know someone like her in real life, which makes you hate her more.

The costumes were interesting, especially how in certain scenes, charcters seemed to be wearing clothes that the fanfiction reader, writer, and shipper (supporter of certain relationship theories in the HP fandom for those of you who don't know) in me was dying to get a screencap of for banner making purposes of future fanfiction stories. I like the musical score better than the one from GOF, I think I will get the soundtrack once I get the chance.

Overall, I liked it more than GOF, but it still doesn't meet my standards of what a good movie is.

Overall rating: 3/5

I heard somewhere that David Yates is directing the next movie ("Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince"), this worries me.

Review: "The Queen"

This movie definitely came out a long time ago, but I watched this on the plane over to Asia (refer to previous post) so I figured I might as well write a review for it. I had a choice of several movies to watch but I chose this one simply because Helen Mirren won an Oscar for her performance. The movie is basically about how the death of Princess Diana affected the British royal family, more specifically, Queen Elizabeth. Mirren definitely deserved her Oscar, she completely humanized Queen Elizabeth and made me feel for her. Most of the time, I see the Queen as some rich old lady leeching off of the British when she doesn't really do much to serve the people. Mirren showed the struggle the Queen has of maintaining her personal traditional values of how the monarchy should behave and the attack of the press and the loss of her people's love. There was no over exaggeration or cheesy melodramatic acting, just the expression of Mirren's eyes in the moment when the Queen was at her lowest point where Tony Blair advised her to lower Buckingham Palace's flag to half mast, return to London, and how her people that she was sorry for Diana's death. There was the look of absolute despair in her eyes for that split second, and then the iron determination to do anything to keep her throne for her son and grandson.
However, there are some negative points to this movie. Its based on events that happened not very long ago so there aren't any surprises in terms of the plot. Most of the teenage crowd will probably find the movie boring even if I found it quite interesting.

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Review: Pirates of the Caribbean 3- At the World's End

Ahh, all good things must come to an end eventually, eh? Unfortunately, the reason for that may be that the quality of "good things" tend to deteriorate as time goes by until they can no longer be labeled as "good". Now this rambling and not-too-logical introduction to this review basically sums up my opinion of this movie: better than "Dead Man's Chest", not as good as "Curse of the Black Pearl". I liked the added romance bits in the plot, especially the ending, very bittersweet. There was a confrontation scene between Elizabeth and Will that I really liked, very romantic. However, the action sequences got pretty repetitive after the first forty minutes. Attempts were made to add humour to the plot by having Jack Sparrow talk to himself...with the different sides of his personality appearing in front of him. It was funny the first time, after that, it just became plain weird. I liked the little bit of plot between Davy Jones and Calypso, except the accent of Calypso made it difficult to understand the dialogue at times. Will Turner doesn't have a very big part in the story in this movie as the plot is centered around Jack Sparrow and the Pirates vs English Navy storyline. I wouldn't have minded seeing more of Orlando Bloom in there... Anyways, if you stay until after the credits are over, there is a teeny weeny additional scene .(by teeny weeny, I really mean teeny weeny)

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Review: Spiderman 3

Okay, I'm writing this review because my mom has decided to constantly remind me that being a journalist is a difficult job and apparently, girls can't do it. Well, I'm going to try my hand at being a critic and write some reviews...

On the day after the release of Spiderman 3, I eagerly headed to the theatre to watch the long-awaited third installment of the Spiderman series. The movie was not exactly a disappointment, the action sequences were great, it was the storyline that I thought was a little messy. Now its not that I don't like the drama aspect of the plot in the Spiderman series, in fact, one of the things I enjoy most about the Spiderman series is that unlike alot of action movies, they actually have those sentimental-y life lesson plots that actually work and don't leave me exclaiming "oh man, not again!". However, the romance plot between Peter and Mary Jane was just pushing it. When I walk into the theatre to watch a Spiderman movie, I don't want a chick flick with all the "Peter, I love you but...", "Peter, Mary Jane and I kissed...", etc. He kissed her but then she was actually with somebody else...too much chick flick drama! The whole Spiderman becoming evil and dark didn't work out too well either. It was more comedic than suspenseful and the fact that Peter ended up looking like Hitler without the mustache in the cafe scene didn't help matters much. However, I did like the new characters of Sandman and Venom, the fighting sequences were great, especially that scene where a section of the building fell off. The storyline with the tension in the friendship of Harry and Peter was great. I must admit, I could feel myself tearing up a bit at the ending.

Overall Rating: 4/5