Spoiler free as far as I can think………
So, anyone else seen HP aTHBP yet?
I’ve been meaning to write a proper review but time is not my friend. So here come the bullet points:
Good:
- Alan Rickman = Snape. Best casting ever?
- Good sense of brooding menace.
- Funny. Much more so than the others IIRC.
- Emotional – again, more so than the previous films and perhaps, the books.
- Acting. Maybe I’m just getting old and soft but Ron in particular seemed a lot lot better. Tom Riddle was excellent and I thought Malfoy did well given quite a tough part.
Bad
- Lacking action. Blame this on the book but….
- Fumbled the finale. Hard to go into without spoilers but this was an obvious set-piece for me – where did it go? I thought the same about a few set pieces from the book but what was strange was they introduced other action themselves which worked well. I’d love to know more about their thinking.
- The word “Tosser”. I’m no Daily Mail reader but it just seemed really jarring. I suppose the idea was to show they are normal kids but one word (used twice) in 6 films seems a bit token!
- It’s only setting up the next one….
Now I know that’s a cheap criticism given I’ve read the books but it really struck me as an interesting reaction. I think on some level I gave the book some credit/leeway as setting up the Deathly Hallows but it bothered me as a film.
I guess this could be a difference between my expectation for books and films but then there are plenty of “Empire Strikes Back” examples to counter that argument. I think it’s more about pacing. As the penultimate story it was fine… but its not the penultimate film and for some reason that made it irritating.
So all in all a solid 3/5 from me. I’m looking forward to the last one, just wish there were not two of them!
As usual, maybe I’m over-analysing – anyone else seen it?
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22/07/2009 at 8:57 am
Si
No, not seen it, but having read an interview with Daniel Radcliffe in one of the film magazines I now know everythign that hapens in the next 3 films, so that’s a bit of a bummer.
23/07/2009 at 1:59 pm
unreadyro
We saw it last night, was hoping this was going to be my first review but got called into a bloody meeting and now have to eat my lunch in 5 minutes. I thought it was really good, agree with the three out of five due to some of the missing stuff which I thought would have been quite cool (sure there was a fight at the end…?). I know it has had alot of criticism about the teenage hormones but I thought on the whole it was tasteful, touching and as you say pretty funny. Not much action though. After these two films they’d better ratchet it up a bit for the finale, there hasn’t been enough death-eater kickings recently and can’t wait for certain characters to get their comeuppance : )