By the sitting graces of Doyce, Margie and Stan and I went off to see Azkaban last night.
Keen.
NO SPOILERS BELOW, I THINK, BUT THE COMMENTS SECTION IS FAIR GAME.
Under the direction of Alfonso Cuaron, there’s a marvelous richness of the environment, a comparative sophistication of story and issues, and the “child” actors, even as they age, are coming their own, and the supporting cast — from the previously underused Alan Rickman to newcomer Gary Oldman — were all marvelous.
If there’s one flaw in the movie — and it’s a seriously one — is that there’s about another hour of movie that should be here. Every scene feels at least the slightest bit rushed, a sentence or two short at the beginning, cut off perhaps a few beats early. Major plot bits are barely sketched out before we rush onto the next. It’s like reading a really good Cliff’s Notes version of the movie. You get all (or at least most) of what needs to be said, but it’s ultimately frustrating.
Still, there’s a lot of nice stuff to watch. The bus. The flyovers of the castle, and the castle itself. The hippogriff. The ubiquitous and horrifying mug shots of Sirius Black. The map. Lots of great Hermione action. The Dementors. And while sometimes the movie feels like Back to the Future, Hermione’s unexpected appearances in class …
There’s a lot missing or truncated. The origins of a certain document that plays a large role, and, indeed, the whole relationship of that quartet. Relationships that that are never shown but play a role later. Sirius’ infiltration beyond the mere fact of it. Whole bits of Hermione backstory gets the world’s briefest explanation, coming across more as deus ex machina, rather than something whose groundwork has previously been laid. The Hermione/Ron/Crookshank conflict. Important aspects of the animagus bit, as applies to Harry. Why the hell Harry doesn’t get his butt kicked out of Hogwarts for actions taken toward a certain teacher. Indeed, the whole shack scene feels horribly rushed and abbreviated, to the point of confusion, as does Harry’s overhearing scene in the pub. “Hit the highest points and move on. We only have 142 minutes!”
And, surprisingly, there’s a lot of extra stuff added in. The changing of seasons. Recap views of certain action. Sometimes that’s good, barely keeping the film from being breakneck the entire time. Sometimes it feels like a few bits that could have been edited more tightly for the sake of putting in other stuff.
If this were a LotR movie, we’d know that there was an extended version coming out on DVD with another 30-odd minutes of explication and filling out of the dialog. I have doubts HTatPoA will have that, though there may be a few bits. And that’s a shame, because what’s here is, generally speaking, quite good. There’s just not enough of it.
I’m glad I saw it, and will be looking forward to the next (and to getting the DVD of this one), but I can’t help feeling just a wee bit disappointed.
Be sure to watch the credits all the way through, by the way. There’s no big surprise at the end, but it’s all unrelentingly clever. And the musical recap is quite nice.
Having watched the movie on DVD this weekend with Kitten — I stand by the above.
I do think (having now watched several of them back to back) that the music was a very interesting component of the film. There’s Celtic/medieval, there’s jazz, there’s all sorts of stuff beyond the normal (wonderful) HP fare. Good show from John Williams.
And this is still just too funny …
I watched the first three movies last weekend, after listening to all the audio books, and thoroughly enjoyed them.
I must respectfully disagree with you on the comedic value of that parody. My mileage seems to have varied immeasurably.
As is nearly always the case (anyone’s mileage varying) with comedy, let alone parody. 🙂