Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Remember when I said watching Part 1 when it was on disc meant I could go see Part 2 in the theater and be really fresh on it? Heh. Anyway, the final film in the long-running Harry Potter series finally brings the story to a conclusion, answering a few questions and putting an end to the reign of the evil Lord Voldemort once and for all. I hope that isn't a spoiler. Having now seen both of the films that were made from the final book after it was chopped in half, I definitely think they should have been one movie. I understand why Warner Bros would want to increase their profits by splitting them up, and avoid a running time that was too long. But they could have easily cut the two films into a single three hour one, and I think it would have been a better movie.

Part of the fallout of splitting the story up is that Part 2 has a pretty odd structure. It has a low key little beginning sequence where Harry talks to a few people and establishes his goals for the rest of the film, then cuts to a partly comedic, partly exciting sequence where he and his friends break into a bank to retrieve one of the doodads they need to defeat Voldemort. It's a solid first act, but then the film skips the second one entirely and jumps straight to an extremely long and drawn out climax for the whole series, when the gang returns to Hogwarts to find the last pieces of the puzzle and fight off the evil army, with help from the other students and pretty much every friendly character from the series' history. There's an ebb and flow of excitement and drama during this part that prevents it from straining too hard or forcing its momentum to a grinding halt, but I can't say it entirely avoids feeling off from time to time. The larger cast outside of the main three kids gets more attention here than they did in Part 1, and it was nice to see a lot of these characters get a last moment or two even if they never got developed in the movies nearly as much as they did on the page.

Besides some of the night scenes being too dark to actually tell what was going on, I didn't have many problems with this long sequence until near the end, after all has been revealed and the game is finally on. A couple things just didn't quite work. The Deathly Hallows themselves were a last minute narrative device already in the books, and they come off even more so here. They were already explained in Part 1, but that needed to be reiterated here in Part 2 for those who might have forgotten, and the explanations are brief and incomplete. They seem less like well-considered keys to victory and more like cheap explanations for why the good guys are able to win without actually having to be smarter or stronger than their opponents. And the final battle itself is just a bit clumsy - it's bigger and more spread out than it appeared in the book, which doesn't really do it any favors and seems like a poor reaction to the less than perfect ending J.K. Rowling crafted in the first place. I don't know if I'm presenting my issues well, but the main thing is just that this series has great production values, but the final scenes presented in this film don't quite live up to the decade of preparation that led up to them. I think David Yates did a solid job bringing the second half of the series to life, but he rarely rose above that mark. It was ultimately an entertaining movie though, befitting a likable if imperfect franchise.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

I've had mixed feelings about the Harry Potter franchise for a long time, especially the films, and this one was no different. I do think it's David Yates' best work yet for the series, and the best movie since the third. And even cutting as much as possible, getting everything important from the book into a single movie without seriously compromising the story (The third movie is the only other one that really works on its own partly because they hacked off enough that it feels like a story rather than a visual CliffsNotes) might have ended up taking well over three hours, and I can see why creatively they wouldn't want to do that, even before considering that splitting it into two means double the ticket, merchandise, and home video sales. But making the seventh book into the seventh and eighth movies does damage each of them a little bit, just because on its own this one felt incomplete. Put together the two halves might actually make the best work yet for WB in this series, but as it is it's just the first half of an ending.

Deathly Hallows Part 1 immediately feels very different from the rest of the series, as it's clear from the beginning that bad stuff is going down, and we see nothing resembling the fairytale the first couple movies portrayed. Starting with the third movie (there it is again) the series changed a bit, showing more maturity as its central actors got better at their jobs and the story got darker. It's completely different here though; we don't see the school at all and get basically a single glimpse of any students besides the main three and their relatives. The entire acting population of Great Britain all come back to their roles here, though mostly only get a scene or two to remind us they exist before the movie pushes forward again. After an exciting if slightly silly action sequence establishes how high the stakes are by killing off a couple minor characters, Part 1 basically turns into a road movie with heist elements, as Harry, Hermione, and Ron search for the doodads that will let them stop the bad guy, brood out in the wilderness, and eventually have some catharsis in their various relationships before the climax, which does its job but just feels minor compared to the ends of previous movies.

The film is very well shot, with a dark and somber look that matches the dreary mood of what the world has turned into. There's still moments of comedy generally revolving around the fact that people casting spells all the time can be kind of silly, but for the most part there's a lot of doom and gloom. One of my favorite bits was a small action scene where the gang gets attacked in a coffee shop; the simple brutality of the damage done and the whole tone of the scene made it feel like a shootout from a mob movie, and I thought it got across the intended feeling of the film as well as anything. The section of the story where the kids are all camping out away from society trying to figure out their next move is already pretty infamous from the book, and it sticks out even more here when it dominates the second half of the whole thing. No single scene sticks out as terrible, but in general these parts feel repetitive and just sort of drag the momentum they'd built to a halt. The characters do learn important things here, but it just seems like they could have handled it a bit more gracefully and quickly. They probably could have found twenty minutes here and chopped them off the make the whole thing a flat two hours. Despite this problem, I do think it's one of the best movies in the series, and while it's the first one I didn't see in the theater, I'm glad I didn't see it until now, because it will be fresh in my mind when the final chapter comes out next month.

The Hurt Locker

I managed to catch a couple more Best Picture nominees before the Oscars last night. Although The Hurt Locker wasn't my favorite (and isn't even on my 2009 list because of its late 2008 release in Italy), it was the most likely candidate to keep Avatar from the top prize, so I was definitely rooting for it as the night went on. It's not that I dislike Avatar, because I enjoyed it, it's that the only reason it seemed that it was getting any sort of award attention over any of the other pretty yet uninspired huge budget action movies over the years is that James Cameron made it and it earned an absurd amount of money. The only way I can see one justifying its critical success is by valuing the difficulty and uniqueness of the process over the actual quality of the result, and in my mind The Hurt Locker is in every way that's important a superior film.

Not that it isn't without its flaws, which I guess I'll get out of the way. Despite being the sort of film that you'd figure is built on details, it makes some strange errors. It takes place in 2004, yet features soldiers playing an Xbox 360 and referring to Youtube, things that didn't come around until a year later. The only thing that I can compare in terms of portraying the war is Generation Kill, and Kill certainly seemed to capture the actual experience a lot closer. There's a difference in goal, as Kill is all about trying to show the soldiers' experience, while Hurt Locker is trying to be an exciting thriller. But while they have a similar veneer of gritty realism, there are things that happen in Locker that just seem and are ridiculous. While Kill follows an entire battalion through the early invasion period, Locker focuses on a single bomb disposal unit that apparently acts autonomously and basically does what they want, which seems wrong and accounts of real soldiers back me up. Jeremy Renner plays a leader who follows his own rules and ignores standard procedure a lot. It's a good, interesting performance, and it avoids being a cliche in the story because of how things turn out. But the simple fact is a sergeant who actually acted like that would never last close to that long in the field.

Also it's funny that one of the quotes on the movie poster compares Jeremy Renner to a young Russell Crowe. Crowe is less than seven years older than Renner.

Anyway. It was a good movie. Mostly on the strength of its sound and visuals. I complained on twitter about writer Mark Boal possibly beating Quentin Tarantino for Best Original Screenplay before it happened, and I stand by that. The script does some interesting things, but for the most part it shuffles between action setpiece and soldier downtime for two hours before its solid denouement. The movie works because those setpieces are filmed so damn well. The super slow motion, the overhead shot as Renner discovers how many buried IEDs he's actually dealing with, the entire amazing desert sniper sequence, the uncompromising nature of dealing with the body bomb... it's just filled with astounding imagery that all the technical wizardry of Avatar wishes it could match the thrill of. And the sound helps every bit as much, with every explosion and gunshot having the perfect punch. The score is really good too, suiting a war movie that doesn't really act like your normal war movie.

I already discussed Renner, who did a great job in his role, and probably deserved the nomination. His two costars Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty are solid as the rest of his squad, and together they form a believable tension between camaraderie and hostility that help the movie survive its lack of authenticity elsewhere. Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes both do well in roles that are sort of funny in the way they go away so quickly, leaving the movie in the hands of the unknowns for the most part. And Kate from Lost shows up as Renner's wife which is kind of weird but doesn't really hurt the film. I've seen some debate about whether Kathryn Bigelow would have won Best Director over her ex-husband if she wouldn't have been the first woman to receive the honor, but for me it goes back to the same question as the two movies overall, and while Cameron may have poured more of his life into his movie and invented more technologies and created more out of his own imagination, what actually showed up on screen in the two films has me leaning towards Bigelow in that department. It's a film that for me totally survived off the strength of her vision, and I'm interested in exploring a bit more of her work, although some of what I've heard about it has me less sure. Still, a good film and an acceptable Best Picture.

In Bruges

If my memory of the trailer I saw months ago is accurate, then In Bruges wasn't advertised correctly. They made it seem like a violent European crime comedy thing along the lines of something Guy Ritchie would make, but it's really more serious than that. The film is quite funny in places, but the story at the heart of it is fairly tragic. After a job goes wrong in London, a couple of hit men are sent by their boss to wait in the little city of Bruges for further instruction; one of them a rookie, the other an old hand. At first the movie is pretty lighthearted, as Brendan Gleeson marvels at the old architecture and all the sightseeing to be had, while Colin Farrell complains about what a bore the place is, and jokes around a bit. But before long we see that his character was deeply affected by what he did back in London, and pretty distraught over what he should do next. For some reason it's popular to dump on Farrell, but I thought he did a very good job with a really good part here.

As time goes on, it gets to the point where he really has to leave Bruges, but circumstances prevent him from leaving, and the boss, played by Ralph Fiennes, shows up which further complicates things. Gleeson is sympathetic to his plight and tries to help, but Fiennes is pretty much a bastard and has no such feelings. It's really a great little cast, the three leads are never all together at once but all share scenes with the other two at some point, and the interactions are always unique and fun. Farrell and Gleeson act like underage brothers, Gleeson and Fiennes are old friends with a history that makes things difficult, and Fiennes and Farrell have a very funny back and forth despite the circumstances of their meeting. There's a cute Belgian girl (who also plays a Harry Potter character along with Fiennes and Gleeson) and a dwarf thrown in to mix things up, and the finale is pretty unfortunate but has a sliver of hope to it. Everything that happens, even apparently meaningless scenes, usually ties in to the main story in some usually comic way, but despite the movie being generally pretty funny throughout, it hit me harder than most comedies do. Definitely should be seen.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The seventh book came out yesterday, which will finally end the story that millions of people have been caring about for a decade. I've always liked them, and the movies were entertaining visions of the story, although as I've said previously, of the first four, I'd only consider the third to be a good film. You can add the fifth to that to make it two good ones.

Whereas the first two were too childish for my tastes, the fourth just seemed muddled in its execution. I understand that in converting a book that long into a movie less than three hours long, you're going to have to make cuts and slim things down a bit. I just think they handled it better this time around than they did before. Goblet of Fire seemed all over the place, while Order of the Phoenix distilled the plot down to the necessary elements. I don't think it's much of a coincidence that the third and fifth books are my favorites as well, and it's quite possible I'm just holding that against the fourth movie subconsciously. It just seemed like they were more concerned with the overall plot. Of course Voldemort returns in the fourth book, and it's extremely pivotal for the whole series. Still, a lot of the actual movie itself was more concerned with the tournament and dances and stuff like that than what was really going on.

Daniel Radcliffe has come into the role of Harry well. It's a bit difficult, since Harry's 'roid raging throughout the whole thing, and it would have been easy to come off a lot worse than he did. The other students are pushed back a bit to focus on the main character, but they're still pretty good. Gary Oldman is great as he always is in his reprisal of the role of Sirius Black. The casting is brilliant as ever, with new characters like Luna, Umbridge, and Bellatrix all picked perfectly. If there's one thing the whole movie series should be commended for, it's the casting. My only problem is that they should have just Ralph Fiennes do his part instead of covering him with that stupid snake makeup that makes him look idiotic. This was also the most exciting movie so far, and the visual effects in the climactic scenes were great. Goblet of Fire actually cut monsters out of the movie, which was the opposite of what you'd think they'd do with a movie. Order of the Phoenix has combat between wizards at a level we haven't seen before, and it's really pretty sweet. The Order coming to save the day might be the best scene in the series. The final showdown was done terrifically as well, and the whole final act is just good. The story has already ended for some readers, but I'll make sure to watch the last two movies to see how they handle it.