Monday, August 2, 2010

Hang in there, the good part's coming

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: The movie

So many things in this movie flew by so fast that it felt like I was watching in fast-forward. I suppose that's because I read the book first. Do others find that when you've read the book first, the movie seems too fast because you realize all that it's skipping and condensing.

I invite everyone's thoughts on the subject.

Otherwise, the climax that begins with Sirius in his dog form dragging Ron beneath the whomping willow was pretty good. Things slowed down a bit. Before that scene, the movie seemed disjointed at times. I wondered that if I hadn't read the book, would I have any idea what is going on. Ultimately this story is about Sirius Black and the moviemakers know that. Obviously, the want to get some other things in there to please the book fans, but it has to be tough to do that without getting bogged down.

So I will work at giving them the benefit of the doubt on the first half moving too fast.

Otherwise, I have quibbles with the portrayals of Black and Lupin. Black wasn't mangy enough and Lupin wasn't pathetic enough. Nor did Lupin look old enough. I know he is the age of Black and Harry's parents and Snape, but I figured he would look more like one who had aged prematurely. And he was the most hairless werewolf I have ever seen.

Peter Pettigrew, however, looked perfectly like the vermin he is.

The Marauder's Map was cool. I want one.

2 comments:

  1. I saw the first couple of movies before I read the books, and I liked them fine. Then reading the books made me see how far short the movies fall. I guess it's good then that the last book is being made into two movies.

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  2. Yes, we were relieved when they announced that book 7 would be shown in two movies. Well . . . as close to book 7 as we're going to get :)

    I agree about the movie being kind of disjointed. Of course, I'm so used to watching it that I fill in the blanks with what I know from the books. Glad you got to see it, and Peter Pettigrew is a perfect giant rat!

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