Wednesday, November 23, 2005

A Disappointing Harry Potter

I know everyone is going on about how great this movie is, but on one very important level, I found it lacking. I suppose there was no way it was going to live up to the hype.

Oh, the action was incredible. I particular liked the fight with the dragon. The underwater task was OK. I thought the maze at the end was bit weak by comparison. The visual effects were superb. That isn't what I was looking for, or it wasn't what I was hoping for to the exclusion of all else.

The real problem was that there was almost no story in the movie. If I hadn't already read the book, I'm not sure any of it would have made sense. Also some of the things that were left in, but left unexplained. Why include Rita Skeeter, but leave out the fact that she is supposed be an animagus. That is major plot item in the next book, since she is an illegal animagus and Hermione uses that fact to get her to blackmail her. The stories written by Skeeter were the basis for the attacks on Harry by the ministry, in Order of the Phoenix. Why include the fact that Olympia Maxine is half-giant (or at least that she is as tall as Hagrid) without really including that in the story. If you were going to drop the whole giant subplot, why leave her as being 12 feet tall? The relationship between Krum and Hermione is only touched on, as is Ron's reaction, though it is probably enough to keep that story line alive.

Warning: spoiler... The prize money was dropped from the story line, so Harry could not give the prize money - which he didn't want after Cedric's Death - to the Weasley twins to finance the Joke Shop. This is a major element of Order of the Phoenix, so what happens to that?

The lack of most story lines was disappointing to say the least. If I wanted to see a movie that consisted completely of special effects, with a minimal story that didn't seem to make much sense, I would have rented one of the Star Wars DVDs.

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