Ok, now I am a pretty big Harry Potter fan. Mainly of the books rather than the films, but I still invest a lot in the films whenever they get released. They tend to be lacking for the main, but I always like seeing what I read and imagine from the books blown up on a massive scale on the big screen. Now from watching the eighth and final instalment of the saga in the IMAX, I have to say I felt very underwhelmed by the whole experience. I have tried to put a bit of distance between the viewing and writing this blog, in a hope that my observations would be less reactionary. However I feel that time has done little to subdue my discouragement with this film. There may be some spoilers further down, but as usual, I will just rant at you as things pop into my head about the film.
So overall the film felt half baked. I have spent the last 6 months defending the slow pace of the first part of Harry Potter 7, advising my friends and colleagues that the reason it wasn't the broom flying, spell casting extravaganza of previous Potter films, was that it was all building up to the second part, which would be a cacophony of magical mayhem to satisfy even the most discerning Potter-phile. I was wrong. The pacing of the film felt extremely stunted. It didn't build to a natural climax. Instead had a maelstrom of offbeats and haphazardly placed dueling sequences. although there was far more wizardry tan the first part, it seemed that it was squeezed in between the rest of the film, so that you didn't get to revel in the more exciting parts of the film.
For example the battle sequence of the attack on Hogwarts. Now in my mind this was going to be an epic clash of good versus evil on a Helm's Deep scale, from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Instead there were a few firework looking spells, some disorientating camera moves distracting from what was going on, and Harry and Co. running by exploding masonry, alluding to a much more interesting event happening just out of shot. Which it appears there was. After the first phase of the attack, Harry walks through the Great Hall, and spies all manner of characters dead on the floor. And we didn't see any of it. Tonks and Lupin, lying holding eachothers' hands, but not a glimpse of their grand final hurrah before death. After spending ten years building up these characters so that they worked on screen as well as they did on paper, just to have them lying on the cold floor with no attempt to let them leave on a high was really disappointing for me.
The one person we did get to see die was Bellatrix Lestrange. Now her final battle against Molly Weasley is notorious throughout the world of Potter fans, as Molly drops the 'B-bomb' all over Bella. But even this was robbed of importance, as the entire duel took up no more than 10 seconds. I saw the fight happening centre stage, a ring of people around them as the fight got more and more heated and extravagant, until the eventual demise of Bellatrix. now I know I am starting to allude to the various ways that I would have shown this film, and I know that the main reason I have an issue with this film is down to my affinity with the source material. Ah well, its my Blog, so I am probably going to continue in this manner anyway.
Fumbling of cherished parts of the story aside, there were a handful of redeeming factors in this film. anything where Alan Rickman was involved was amazing. From the get go he has been the epitome of what Severus Snape should be to me. His ability to honestly portray a character who we really cannot tell his moral leaning until the final denouement, still had me believing he could go either way, even though I knew before the film his true allegiances. The revelation of Snape's past and involvement with Harry's mother throughout, was touching and intriguing at the same time. It still required a slight more detail to show how Lily Potter turned from Snape to James Potter, but was by far the most developed piece of the film.
Another redeeming factor was some of the cinematography. as I have mentioned before, a lot of the battle sequences felt a little over complicated and confused the detail to which you could see the events on screen, but the wider establishing shots of the castle, Hogsmeade and the Forbidden Forest were beautifully handled, and manged to regain some of the grandeur that a film looking to tackle a franchise of this size should be looking for. Harry, Ron and Hermione gliding across a London skyline on a dragon's back was particular stunning by subtly blending the familiar with the magical.
But in all the film couldn't be saved by these points. there were many things that were left unexplained, or relied on knowledge of the books to fill in the gaps. this is something in film adaptations that I don't like. It is one things to have little homages to the source material, that fans can pick up on. But to rely on this for larger facets of the plot seems to me to be putting too much onus on the viewer. The biggest thing that went unexplained, was also the point in the film which I knew I wasn't going to be able to look back on it favourably. When Harry is entering the Forbidden Forest to face off against Voldemort for the final time, he slowly walks into a clearing, with him on one side, and a platoon of Death Eaters and Voldemort on the other. Oh, and one addition, Hagrid. Hagrid goes to bellow at Harry "What are you doing here?!". No Hagrid, what the hell are you doing there! For someone who hasn't even been mentioned for the past two hours, only to turn up for no other reason than to look sad and carry a tiny Harry back to the castle afterwards, I feel he has no right to casting any aspersions upon anyone else for their reasoning for being there. As anyone who has discussed the film with me in person will know, this line is my least favourite thing about the whole film.
So I know that my disillusionment with this film is most likely my own doing for having such high expectations after loving the books so much, but it can't be helped that I feel let down by the finale to the Potter saga. Nonetheless, I still feel that considering how much of the final book they got out of the way in the first part, they did not make the most of the stellar material they left themselves with. Handled differently, and with the flow of the film managed better, this could of at least satisfied as the final instalment, but instead left you wishing they hadn't bothered with the film, so at least in your head the film could still have been as limitless and emotive as the book. And I won't even go into the '19 Years Later' scene...
Happy viewing...
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