Harry's Back...
The fourth installment of JK Rowling's immensely popular books is out at cinemas now and I went and saw it with Hayley the other day.
I came out fairly disappointed. Goblet of Fire was my favourite books of the series so far, the two following it didn't do a great deal for me, and for me the film didn't manage to emulate the things which I enjoyed in the book. My favourite thing about the novel was how she moved the narrative away from Harry a little bit more and fleshed out other characters. Sadly, most of this was cut in the film, and so we got another Harry-centric outing.
My biggest problem with this is that the more we get to know Harry, the more I find him self-centered and annoying as a character. I understand that the book is a marathon and if they needed to cut large parts of the the first three books when they made those films, this one was going to suffer even more. But for a director that is all about characterisation, I didn't get the sense of involvement that I wanted. At the end when one of the characters dies, I got no sense of mourning or loss, because I simply didn't have any personal involvement with him. Newell hadn't let us get to know the character, so asking me to feel something was asking a bit much. Let alone asking me to believe that Harry felt something when he'd said barely 5 lines to him all film.
On the plus side the visuals remain beautifully created, and the world seems a little bit more deep in conception now.
Still, you can make something as pretty as you want, but it don't make it better.
I came out fairly disappointed. Goblet of Fire was my favourite books of the series so far, the two following it didn't do a great deal for me, and for me the film didn't manage to emulate the things which I enjoyed in the book. My favourite thing about the novel was how she moved the narrative away from Harry a little bit more and fleshed out other characters. Sadly, most of this was cut in the film, and so we got another Harry-centric outing.
My biggest problem with this is that the more we get to know Harry, the more I find him self-centered and annoying as a character. I understand that the book is a marathon and if they needed to cut large parts of the the first three books when they made those films, this one was going to suffer even more. But for a director that is all about characterisation, I didn't get the sense of involvement that I wanted. At the end when one of the characters dies, I got no sense of mourning or loss, because I simply didn't have any personal involvement with him. Newell hadn't let us get to know the character, so asking me to feel something was asking a bit much. Let alone asking me to believe that Harry felt something when he'd said barely 5 lines to him all film.
On the plus side the visuals remain beautifully created, and the world seems a little bit more deep in conception now.
Still, you can make something as pretty as you want, but it don't make it better.
posted by Unknown | 12/09/2005 09:44:00 am
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