Potter again

I saw the new and extremely underwhelming Harry Potter movie Wednesday evening.

Don’t get your panties in a bunch yet! Before I start bitching, I want to praise what were some very strong aspects of the film.

The acting is great, and I’m not just talking about the secondary players like Jim Broadbent, Robbie Coltrane, Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman. They’ve always been awesome and could be considered one of the greatest ensembles ever assembled. Instead, it’s the “kids” that blew me away. They’ve matured well, sharpened their acting chops and have truly made the characters their own. For example, in the earlier movies all Rupert Grint had to do to play Ron Weasly was make funny faces and pretend to be scared of everything. Here he shows a full range of emotions, but more importantly he really nails his comedic timing. His scenes are far and away the best in the movie.

The Quiditch scenes are the best yet. It’s like you’re flying along on your own broom, dodging bludgers and trying to avoid cheating Slytherin players. It’s the little things you can see that really make it worthwhile. Players grab at one another, can be seen shifting their balance from one side of their brooms to other and best yet, CRASHING! Very cool and very exciting.

The special effects are fantastic. Not much to say here as it should be what the viewer expects. They’re realistic, tangible, cold when they should be and hot when it’s appropriate. Very well done.

Okay, on to the bad.

Story. Anyone who has read the novel knows that this book is kind of one big set-up for the finale. However, that being said, there are some very important and enlightening scenes that take place that really make the world and the characters realistic for the reader. While they may not come to much in the endgame, they’re why the books are so well loved.
Unfortunately, the movie leaves these scenes out for scenes that amount to even less in the grand scheme of things. They reveal little, add little and are boring, which brings me to my second point…

Pacing. The pacing in this film is awful. It drags with beautiful but pointless scenery, repetitive dialogue and…well basically, it’s filled with long scenes about things the watcher doesn’t really give a crap about. For the record, very uninteresting things that people don’t care about make for a bad cinematic experience.

Last and probably the most grievous mistake takes place in the Finale. Oh wait, what finale? Get it? You won’t get it in the theatre either.