| Grumpy old fartings |
[Dec. 5th, 2009|02:54 pm] |
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I rented some movies last night. It's been a while and when it's been a while you notice that all those movies you really wanted to seeat the cinema are now up for rent (yes, I RENT movies. I realise people may balk at my ridiculously old fashioned sensibilities, but I do believe in paying for someone's creation.. and yes, I do know that most of these films are made by multinational behemonts with wads of cash sticking out from every orifice including the toilet bowl, but if you believe in creative rights, then you do need to respect those no matter how filthy rich the person with the rights is. Dems the breaks), which means you want to rent everything and everything's shiny and interresting.
Up for viewing last night; The Half-Blood Prince and Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs.
I was tempted to rent Coraline... and after seeing these two, I think I might have to rent that one today.
Neither movie was terribly good. :(
So far I've been at least entertained by all Harry Potter movies. And if you haven't seen this one, I'm warning you, I'm probably totally going to spoil the entire movie right now.
It's not like the previous movies haven't been a wee bit scattered. There's a lot of book to cram into a few hours of celluloid (or so I'm told. I still haven't read any of the books and don't plan on it for a while to come), so I can see why some elements would seem superflous, but the previous films did a very good job of keeping up the suspence all the way, having interresting little details that didn't contribute much or at all, but were a delight to see. And the central storyline so far has been kept reigned in. There's the set up, some filling, some events that move the plot along and possibly (though mostly not) will feature somewhere in the story's future more prominently, some filling and a climax. And it's all been rather pretty to look at. So even for a non fan (person who wont read the books) it's all been very entertaining in different ways.
However, this one... eh.. yeah, now I'm going to spoil it and bring upon myself the wrath of Potter fandom.... this one is not good at all. I was merely slightly bored when watching it (I had to try and watch it three times since I kept falling asleep. Not usually a good sign) but the more I think about it, the more it bothers me that there were such a huge number of missed opportunities with the plot points and a huge amount of utter gibberish. I could kind of believe that it's because this is all a set up for the next book, it needs to be a giant piece of padding, but since the last book will be split into TWO movies, I think it's safe to assume that one of those will also be a giant piece of padding. There are so many elements that would've given terrific depth to it all, and none of it's used.
Though to be fair, this could all be different in the actual book, so don't hate me for hating the movie, since none of these feelings are directed at the original work.
Oh where to start.... the "bad guys" destroy a bridge in the "human" world for no particular reason other than because they're all nasty and stuff. Point of this? Who knows. They don't do suchmean things to us humans later on in the movie. They drag along a kid with a hood on.. for whatever reason. Again, not mentioned later on in the movie (though I suppose this is one of those things I might have slept through or that is mentioned in the book). The bad guys harrass the Weasleys (because they're that evul and have time to spare?) and Harry The Outofcharacterthicko chases after them out in the fields where nothing really happens except that the baddies surround the good guys, then fly off to torch the Weasley's house. Right. So the point of all this was.... to torch their house? Not to kill or maim your enemies, but to.. torch their house? Ok, so you effectively made them homeless which would be a good plot point if it wasn't immediately forgotten in the very next scene where Ron's not really bothered about anything except his hyperclingy bunnyboiler one-night-stand. Way to handle a huge issue, movie. Lack of home is never mentioned again.
A girl is "cursed" with an evil necklace that's meant for Dumbledore. Again.. because he likes to dress fancy? A poisoned piece of alcohol that's tried later on seems like a much more effective way to off someone, but I can't quite wrap my head around the necklace thing. What's the thought process behind trying to get Dumbledore cursed with an evil necklace. Obviously the characters know more about his passtime hobbies than I do. It also strikes me as a particularly ineffective way to kill someone since all that appears to happen is a very nice floating effect. Curses make you float. Is a fact.
Hermione is stalked by a handsome yet obnoxious twerp. This is somehow handled somewhere offscreen.
Ron for whatever reason develops a bad case of performance anxiety with playing quidditch. Harry pretends to give him a good luck potion that supposedly makes him play really awesomely, when in reality he didn't give Ron anything and it's was all just a ruse to get him to trust himself. And here we go with a missed opportunity again. In the movie Harry never tells Ron he didn't give him drugs (not really going to go any deeper with the hidden meanings and such), so as far as we know, Ron thinks his performance was all due to the potion. A good opportunity for exploring chemical addiction and self worth issues. But no. Ron brings home the medal and bangs the bunnyboiler and we're done. That's it. Nothing's mentioned of the game or anxiety or such things again. *sigh*
Then there's the book of potions previously owned by The Half-Blood Prince. There's some initial ruckus about trying to find out who this prince person was, but that's quickly forgotten too. Harry merely finds the book terribly helpfull with all it's precise and amended information on potions. Then when he gets into a fairly fiery confrontation with Draco Malfoy at a restroom (a confrontation where Draco starts throwing some nasty spells around), Harry manages to be just a fraction quicker and hit Draco.
And because of this it's decided that the potion book is evil and Harry needs to get rid of it.... wait, what? Wha.. how?! Harry hasn't been acting a particularly violent way, he hasn't had huge personality changes (beyond being just a slighty weaker and thicker version of himself), he hasn't gone on a random killing spree or been unreasonable.. and even if he had, it's be a rather huge leap in logic to assume that's all because of a book he uses for that one class. Recycled books make you evil! Is a fact too.
It's explained that if you kill someone you break your soul in two (if you kill two people, the soul is in three peices, three people = four pieces and so on and so forth), and you can hide a piece (or pieces) and effectively be immortal since a piece always remains in this world even after your body is detroyed. Cool. So does this apply to everyone? Do you need to do something special to make it work? It's probably not spoiling anything from anyone at this point to say Dumbledore gets killed at the end. Since Snape did it, does this mean his soul is in two now and he can be immortal if he hides the other part?
And at the risk of sounding like a cold hearted harpy, the whole death scene left me unmoved. And that's coming from someone who usually sobs uncontrollably at any old piece of cheese just as long as there's any implication that this event was significant. Snape offhandedly mentions that he's the Half-Blood Prince ("Oh. Well, cheers. I can still call you Snape, right?") and Hagrid's house is burned. Was hagrid inside? Is he dead? Why did they burn the house? Because they're evul and pyromania can't be cured with anything but death? Not mentioned. And that pretty much ends the movie.
I'm.. just... blah.
The special effects are nice. That's good, right? And I got a naughty dream or two about Daniel Radcliffe. Not sure how good that is. Made me feel a wee bit dirty.
It's just such a lackluster movie. It doesn't gain any momentum until the last third and even that's mostly a build up to the unspectacular death of Dumbledore. It's made clear that all the kids are all high on hormones and everyone's preoccupied with snogging as opposed to the looming End Of The World As We Know It. You (and by you, I mean I) get the feeling that the world is ending and bad and horrible and with murder and stuff.. but that's all someone else's business. We're all happy here in Hogwarts with all the hot totty running around. We'll wait out the Armageddon and try and repopulate the world while we're waiting. And bob's your uncle!
As for the Futurama movie... It wasn't horrible, but all the other Futurama movies have been better. Though getting ghonorrea from the heavenly supreme being did make me chuckle. |
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