(4 wands out of of 5)1 point deducted for gratuitous music montage.
Trailer
It`s true. I`m on Team Potter. I`ve never read any of the books but I`ve thoroughly enjoyed each and every movie installment thus far. That`s not completely true. I did try to read the first Harry Potter in Spanish 2 years ago in order to keep up my proficiency while studying Japanese. However, I didn`t foresee how annoying it would be to read words like "muggle" in Spanish, become frustrated after not finding it in my dictionary and finally realizing it`s a made up piece of garbage. This happened several times in the first few pages and so I decided to give up the venture and just Skype random people with castillian-ish e-mail addresses. This was equally as successful. Back to the movie.
I had a really good time in this movie, despite it`s 2.5 hour duration. Sitting still that long is usually pretty difficult, especially in the overheated Japanese theaters that have an ungodly large font size for the subtitles. Half of Potter`s lightning scar is covered up by kanji in every scene. I can`t imagine how any Asian ever succeeds in recognizing any celebrity without a pound of chinese characters all over their face. Can you imagine an entire pound of chinese characters upon your face? Do you know how messy that would be? It`s grammatical bukkake. Some teachers have wet dreams about this stuff. I promise you I am not one of them. Yet.
So, the movie was lots of fun. I love fantastic movies + castles + magic + flying + funny words like *hoarcrux* which does not translate to Japanese well. Shinichi asked me several times during the movie after reading the subtitles, "Bill, what is a slut-cross?" At least he`s trying to make sense of it. Everyone did a good job with their roles, especially my favorite Helena Bonham Carter, who was extra devilish in this installment, even if only for 7 minutes.
The Harry Potter series keeps getting more and more adult-oriented. It`s not a bad thing at all, it`s a very honest and understandable turn for the story to take. However, it does start to get you down after a while. There`s a fair amount of drama in this one between the 3 main characters and that poor Ron Weasley needs to brush his hair once in a while.
At one part of the movie, the three main characters are camping out, on the run and they`re living in this magical tent, protected by magical spells and eating magical foods. Despite all this magic, they`re still caked with dirt and constantly cold. Why don`t they teach these wizards how to do a magical bathing spell? Or possibly a haircut spell? Even a bucket of fried chicken spell would be pretty easy compared to all that "obliviate" and "guardium leviosa" garbage they`re always using. Let`s try something practical guys!
Dumbledor doesn`t waste too much of the screen time in this movie, a nice respite from the lengthy diatribes of episodes past. He`s dead, of course, so you only have to deal with him in quick flashbacks. Good work, screenwriters.
At one point, Hermione tells this fairy tale and the movie turns to animation in order to depict the action and this part is fantastic. The animation is beautiful and elegant and smartly done. I was extremely impressed by this part and hope that the animation team hired to create this section keeps this aesthetic and does some music video work in the future. Their style was very smooth and abstract but told the story so nicely and succinctly that I really think they would succeed if they delved into the music video world, especially if they hooked up with someone funky like Jonsi or Kyte.
On a more random note, Harry Potter takes off his clothes 2 times in this movie. It`s quite unsettling to watch Harry Potter undress so often. Every time he takes his shirt off, all I can think of are all those doctored photos of him from the Eqqus advertisements where he`s naked with a horse. Weird. Or hot. Let`s stick with weird. Bestiality is not yet as commonplace as some would prefer. I swear I am not some.
On a lighter, less creepy note, if you`re really into HP, I highly recommend this YouTube video which is a very fun take on the typically serious story.
- Bill
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