Where to begin? It's three in the morning, and I just got back from some theater in Hanover (PA) where my sister and I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 . After realizing that the six screens at the dirtmall and the four at Frank's were all sold out, my wife came up with this random theater that claimed "we can't be sold out." Yep. Can't. I guess I'm a little slow sometimes, but I eventually worked out the wonders of a digital presentation of a film. We got there at 11:55 and I really think that at least 14 of the 16 screens were showing HP. To me, that's just absurd. What was nice, however, was the fact that our theater wasn't overly crowded. Unfortunately, the douche to non-douche ratio was exceedingly high. Anyway...on to the movie.
Maybe I was simply exhausted/annoyed, but I didn't love this movie. I didn't hate it, either. It simply seemed like something was missing. The emotional impact I expected just wasn't there. I knew that some important characters were going to meet their demise and I thought the way it was handled wasn't very resonant. Granted one woman (and yes, I'm going woman and not girl) sobbed funeral-style on more than one occasion, but I felt indifferent. But my main complaint...
...was the battle scene! I remember it being completely out-of-control in the book! Pure chaos.
In the flick, the pre-battle is very, very cool. Professors and students getting ready to defend Hogwarts. Voldemort and his crew are marching on the school and all sorts of unsavory characters are swarming from all sides. The tension mounts and....
...we cut away. We follow the action inside (rightfully so) and never really revisit it (wrongfully so - if that's something people say). Yes, eventually the Big 3 head out (and it's pretty badass when they do) to join in the fracas. But it's all over way too fast. This is Warner's flagship franchise. I wanted to see 100 million dollars worth of wizards kicking ass.
Wait.
Replace wizards with lame-ass robots and that's essentially Transformers 3. Fine, maybe not an hour of straight action, but more would have been better.
The only time I really, really wanted less was in the Epilogue. Hands down my least favorite part of the book, and sadly, it's laughable on the big screen. In movies, aging 19 years means you get a bad haircut and gain 5 pounds. Poor, poor Ginny. *shudder*
Whatever. No opinions matter when you are talking about the 8th (and final) movie in a series. You either HAVE TO see this to complete your life, or you lost interest 6 movies ago. Regardless, this is a franchise that should be commended. I will literally/magically punch someone in the face/crotch if they ever, ever remake/reboot this.
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| I was going to go with Neville...but... |
...was the battle scene! I remember it being completely out-of-control in the book! Pure chaos.
In the flick, the pre-battle is very, very cool. Professors and students getting ready to defend Hogwarts. Voldemort and his crew are marching on the school and all sorts of unsavory characters are swarming from all sides. The tension mounts and....
...we cut away. We follow the action inside (rightfully so) and never really revisit it (wrongfully so - if that's something people say). Yes, eventually the Big 3 head out (and it's pretty badass when they do) to join in the fracas. But it's all over way too fast. This is Warner's flagship franchise. I wanted to see 100 million dollars worth of wizards kicking ass.
Wait.
Replace wizards with lame-ass robots and that's essentially Transformers 3. Fine, maybe not an hour of straight action, but more would have been better.
The only time I really, really wanted less was in the Epilogue. Hands down my least favorite part of the book, and sadly, it's laughable on the big screen. In movies, aging 19 years means you get a bad haircut and gain 5 pounds. Poor, poor Ginny. *shudder*
Whatever. No opinions matter when you are talking about the 8th (and final) movie in a series. You either HAVE TO see this to complete your life, or you lost interest 6 movies ago. Regardless, this is a franchise that should be commended. I will literally/magically punch someone in the face/crotch if they ever, ever remake/reboot this.
I was just perusing the blog and realized that you used 'fracas' in your post....good stuff! Question: what part of the movie is your title quote from? I don't remember that line - perhaps it was during one of the scenes when I was sobbing funeral-style.....
ReplyDeleteSorry you didn't like this one more - for me it was an insane screening. i took my mother who fell as sleep, due to wearing 3d glasses and getting dizzy when they were flying on the dragon, and I wept like a freaking moron on most of Snape scenes. Love this film, but it broke my heart so much I only saw it once. I agree about the make up in the epilogue, though, that was so bad.
ReplyDeleteNo! It's not that I didn't like it, it just didn't wreck me like I thought it would (like it did you). It's been a long time since I've seen it, and maybe I'll revisit it. But more likely, I'll go the Lindsay Lohan-route and blame my actions on exhaustion and keep it moving...
DeleteThat's awesome about your mom, by the way.