I had a problem with the story as well. The story felt really solid for a while and then just kind of clusterfucked itself to the finish line.
Yeah, it was pretty disappointing considering the first hour especially was really tense and well done.
I'm rewatching the Harry Potter films for what seems like the hundredth time. So far, I've watched Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets, the only two films worth watching one-off. Now it's time to dive into Prisoner of Azkaban, which is where the whole series starts spiraling downward. (And I seriously can't fucking stand that they gave Sirius Black prison tattoos. That's so goddamn fucking idiotic and stupid and just... ugh.)
I disagree so much. Prisoner of Azakban is by far the best and my personal favorite adaptation of the series. The film has such a unique atmosphere to it that I absolutely adore. While the first two are great, they're too faithful to the books as I see it, as "magical" as they might feel. Prisoner proved that the Potter films could be taken seriously as a great film, rather than just a good adaption of a kids book. Fuck The Order of the Phoenix movie though. David Yates adapted my favorite Potter book into the worst movie of the franchise. Thankfully, he redeemed himself with the last three in my mind (despite the minor faults I have with Half-Blood Prince).
Eh. I see what you mean about Prisoner of Azkaban. I didn't say it's a bad movie; I said it's where the series starts going downhill. I love the performances of David Thewles and Gary Oldman as Remis Lupin and Sirius Black; those were perfect castings, I think. But this is the film where the started cutting out some very important minor storylines that affected the later films. (The biggest one is never explaining the origins of the Marauder's Map; that still bothers me.) I do like that the film was a little more "serious," as you say, but at the same time, I think this is the film where they started losing their overall magical feeling; that's what made the first two films so amazing for me, because they were almost exactly what I pictured in my head as I read the first two books for the first time. I'll agree that Order of the Phoenix is the worst adaptation, but I'd also argue that both parts of Deathly Hallows are up there with it. I understand that things had to be changed from book to film in order for it all to work, but a lot of the things they changed from Goblet of Fire until the end made absolutely no sense and wrecked a lot of storylines that had to be rewritten for the films just so they would make sense in the context of the film, which I think hurt the overall story. The biggest problem I've got with the entire series, though, is the way Voldemort was depicted dying; that was utterly absurd and went against everything Rowling was trying to prove insofar as Voldemort's attempt at immortality was concerned. In the end, it was just his body lying there, proving that he was just a man once again; in the film, he crumbles, which ruins that whole point. And then Harry snapping the Elder Wand in half was just ridiculous and unnecessary; he didn't even repair his own wand first! (Which was important as Harry had a feeling the Elder Wand would've been the only wand capable of repairing his wand in the first place.) The whole point of him replacing the wand in Dumbledore's tomb was so that the power of the Elder Wand would break when Harry died without ever losing the wand. That was an extremely important point. Speaking of Goblet of Fire, leaving out Percy Weasley and the way he sort of worshipped Barty Crouch as infallible was a bad choice, because that was a very important storyline for the entire Weasley family over the rest of the series leading up to Fred's death. And as far as Half-Blood Prince is concerned, changing around the story of how Harry and Ginny finally got together made the overall plot of the film really wonky because of what they changed to make it work. A lot of it just made no sense to me. Oh, and let's not forget that Michael Gambon was absolutely horrible as Dumbledore and nothing you say can ever change my mind. The rest of my problems with the series are just simple nitpicks, really. I'm not saying I don't enjoy the films for what they are, but I've never been able to separate books from their films no matter how hard I try, so having read the books before I ever saw even the first film really made it hard for me to enjoy the series as a whole.
I pretty much love all of the films (especially DH pt. 1, as weird as that sounds), but I agree with a lot of what you said, except that Michael Gambon was horrible as Dumbledore — I wish they'd hired him in the first place!
He played Dumbledore almost exactly opposite from how he was written. Horrible. Can't believe Rowling ever approved of it.
For me , HP5 and HP 6 was the worst, especially 6 (TOO MUCH FUCKIN LOVESTORY!). All in all i liked the films, especially the last two.
The Lazerus Effect - 1/5 Total horse shit. The movie dug itself into a hole 20 minutes in and set itself for failure. Wasn't scary or creepy at all. The only thing scary about it is how much money they wasted on such a shit film
Really? I thought the movies really didn't exaggerate any of the love stories. There's more love-related stuff in the books, actually (Harry going to Hogsmeade with Cho and him spending time with Ginny in the Hogwarts grounds, for example).
Personally, I don't like any of the movies They have a more ''high-school'' drama aspect than the HP books for me and they acting seems so wooden to me. It's just when you read books and there's good dialogue in it and the movie seems to have awkwarder wording, it pisses you off ha. I don't know, I personally think the HP movies are no good on their own at all. They don't have the magic effect (I mean suspension of disbelief I think) the books had on me.
The Theory of Everything: 4.5/5 - I found that really hard to watch, honestly. I hate seeing people suffer and Eddie Redmayne sure did a good job making it as believable as it could be. All in all, a very, very good movie.
Richard Harris played Dumbledore as he was written. Michael Gambon shit all over Rowling's character and was godawful. I fucking hated everything about how Gambon played Dumbledore. (The worst was when he portrayed Dumbledore absolutely freaking the fuck out when Harry's name came out of the Goblet of Fire; that's baseline treachery and absolutely unforgivable among the fandom.) I still can't believe she okayed that portrayal of Dumbledore, although I'd like to think it's one of the things the directors decided and overrode any decision she made about it. There's hardly any love story in Half-Blood Prince. The way they went about Harry and Ginny's relationship was all wrong and terrible and not even remotely close to how awesome and fluid and natural it was in the book.
Gambon didn't write the script. I suppose Dumbledore as a character in the films began to stray away from the book Dumbledore at the same time as the movies themselves did.
As much as I love Richard Harris' Dumbledore, I'm starting to think that Michael Gambon was a better fit. Was he the best portrayal of Dumbledore ever? Nope. But, I just can't see Harris' Dumbledore in the later movies, especially in scenes like the inferi in Half-Blood Prince.
You've got to keep in mind that Richard Harris was almost as old as the New Testament when he was cast as Dumbledore. But that's what was so great about Dumbledore in the books: he didn't look like he could do those things, since he was the oldest person on the planet, but he could; that was part of the magic of Dumbledore, I think. But I'm not talking about the physical portrayal of Dumbledore so much as the rest of it. Gambon doesn't portray Dumbledore as he was written and I hate that about the portrayal. I get straying a bit to make it your own, but it's ridiculous that Book Dumbledore and Movie Dumbledore aren't even close after the third movie. But I think we're going to have to just agree to disagree here.
Fury - Actually a lot better than I expected. Without giving too much away, this is kinda like a war version of Django in the sense that it has a very good buildup, interesting plot and good character development, but the ending is borderline ridiculous! Would definitely recommend. 7.5/10