Well what can you expect if you hand the camera over to a stupid Hispanic who probably cannot find one end of his anatomy from any other even with detailed, diagrammatic directions?
Alberto Cuaron destroyed my favourite Harry Potter novel! He made a film which dwelt more on typical American pot-boiling elements than what the writer penned in her novel!
How lame can you get... Cuaron actually spent precious minutes on what passes off as the car-chase scene in this film. I, of course, am refering to the Knight Bus with that shrunken Jamaican’s head instructing the driver in an accent that would make you give up and quietly die, and give you dying thoughts of how drastically life worsened when Cuaron made sure Jar Jar Binks’ accent is emulated in a Harry Potter film by a shrunken head with Rastafarian dreadlocks!
Okay, hang on... let’s not get so vitriolic. Let’s just think what was good about the film.
Oh dear, I cannot seem to think of an answer. Nothing was. Except for the sound-track in one scene when the students are being ferried to the Hogwarts castle in horseless carriages... anything else? No.
What about Alan Rickman as Snape? What about Snape? He’s hardly there. He’s just there to be thwarted, or made fun of... Snape barely gets a chance to be his delightfully disagreeable self. One of the very few characters with true personality and he’s demolished.
Okay, okay, what about Lupin? He’s awfully cool in the book ain’t he? Well, so is the feeling the Dementors give you. But Lupin’s just there, does his job and vamooses. But isn’t that what he’s supposed to do? Sure is, but Lupin’s got a ROLE in the book! Over here he’s nothing... he’s supposed to be Harry’s friend, but does anything like that comes through? He just teaches Harry the Patronus charm and that’s it. And yeah, he charges after Harry and Hermione when he changes, that’s all. No one knows how close Remus is supposed to be to Harry’s parents, ’coz it just don’t come through in the film!
Hmm.. okay, what about Sirius? And the Dementors? The Hippogriff? How did the newly-introduced elements fare in the film? Sirius... oh dear, Sirius is supposed to be such a charismatic and absorbing personality, yes, even in book 3! But here Cuaron does not give Gary Oldman the chance to be anything! In fact, more often than not Sirius Black is seen on the front page of the Daily Prophet screaming in rage. That entire conversation between Remus, Sirius, and Harry in the Shrieking Shack is so earth-shaking but in the film it comes and goes in a whiff!
As for the Dementors... yes they are creepy, that’s true. But for some odd reason Cuaron has made them so that lakes freeze over when they are around, flowers wilt, the window panes of the Hogwarts Express fog over, the very ground deadens. I mean, wouldn’t it have been more effective if the director had just shown the actors being terrified? And Harry’s supposed to hear his parents very, very clearly, but at most he hears is a high-pitched woman’s voice screaming out what you can just about make out is ’’Harry’’. And Dementors are NOT supposed to fly! If the Dementors can fly then how did Sirius and Buckbeak escape? This is too stupid, really!
The Hippogriff? Well, Buckbeak’s a jolly pleasant surprise. I really liked that. Full marks for such excellent realisation of a composite creature. It was really flawless.
And yeah, Emma Thompson’s her usual cool self as the batty old Sybil Trelawney, but all those little prophecies of hers, such as Neville breaking the tea-cup, Parvati’s rabbit dying, and Hermione’s leaving the class... all those little co-incidences are just not shown!!!
Okay, that’s that. What about the old cast? Didn’t that save the day? ’Course not. But they could have had the nimrod of a director given them all enough to do! Daniel Radcliffe has improved so drastically it was a pleasure to watch him. But Rupert Grint’s been sidelined too much considering how well he did in the previous film! But Emma Watson carries the film as much as she can. She’s cool all the way, the best of all. But if you’re expecting something out of Draco Malfoy, Hagrid, or Professor McGonagall, then you’ve got as many thinks coming as you can handle. Snape I’ve already mentioned had too little to do.
And Dumbledore’s been cast as the old bat who at the moment of maximum urgency becomes daft and cryptic. Why? He’s not this way in the novel, why has he been changed so that he seems wholly ineffectual!?!?!?
Hmm... so the problem is merely that the novel did not follow the book, right? Um... yeah, that’s there. The thing is, because so many things were not there in the film, it made the sequence of events a tad tough to follow because so many questions would spring up in your mind... such as, how or why did Snape pop up in the Shrieking Shack? How did Lupin know that the Marauders’ Map is to make sure Harry strays into harm’s way?
The second part is that there are things which are shown which did not happen! The Dementors did not automatically attack Harry just as they saw him, as it’s been show in the film! The only time when the Dementors actually go for Harry is at the end when he is trying to conjure the patronus. That’s what irked me! The freedoms the director took with the novel when converting it to the film - slicing most of it away, and expanding whatever bits are left - were ATROCIOUS to say the least!
Hmm... okay..... I mean, the film’s supposed to be based on the novel! So why didn’t it stick to it? That’s why am so right pissed-off! I mean, it’s not even revealed who were Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs! Or when Snape takes the Marauder’s Map from Harry! Or the truth behind the Whomping Willow? And the Firebolt which was not sent in the film when it was supposed to be? Or why Harry’s patronus took that particular shape as it did... the film lacked MAGIC! Yep, that’s what... it lacked the mysterious magic which serves as the Force for the magical community! There was nothing mystical about the film. It was too great a come-down. And forget mystical, the suspense is not revealed in the film’s climax, because there is NO climax! KUCH BHI TO NAHI HUA FILM MEIN!
Was there anything nice about it, then? Well yeah, the backgrounds. The director focussed a lot on the gorgeous scenery, and the Hogwarts castle... the moving paintings, the ghosts, the staircases... those were good. But then, all that was just background matter unfortunately.
And am surprised at Joanne Rowling. After kicking up such a fuss that her approval be taken for every sequence of every Harry Potter film how could that stupid women be satisfied with this film is beyond me... Seems both of them suck royally, Cuaron for making such a film, and Rowling for allowing this to happen!
I RECOMMEND THIS FLICK ONLY AND ONLY BECAUSE IT’S HARRY POTTER... NO OTHER REASON. IT’S RATHER BADLY-MADE IN MY OPINION AND HAS A ROTTEN SCREENPLAY TO BOOT!!!