I have finally been to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Am I the only one that thinks Imelda Staunton did a damn fine impression of Maggie Thatcher as the toad-like Dolores Umbridge? Helena Bonham Carter was in fine form as the evil Bellatrix Lestrange but I wish the director had told Emma Watson (Hermione) that constant deep breathing and eyebrows with a life of their own do not a convincing performance make.
The other thing that grated was the amount of munching and slurping going on. Harry Potter films are long – yet the sense of being at a midnight feast persisted throughout. Has the nanny state so shamed the UK’s junk food eaters that they now only dare indulge under cover of darkness at the cinema?
Perhaps the eating was a desperate ploy by parents trying to keep their children quiet. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. After the first half hour, the small people because restless and talkative. There were children there who were far to young to be able to follow the plot and were patently lost.
However, I enjoyed the film and enjoyed the trailer for the first of the His Dark Materials films, which will be out later in the year. Though why Northern Lights has been renamed the Golden Compass I do not know. I just hope they haven’t messed about too much with the story.
20 comments:
Great Potter review M&M.
Golden Compass is the US version of Northern Lights...
I had the same problem with noisy kids at the same film.
Daniel Radcliffe always reminds me of Mike Oldfield, I'll have to get the pics side by side to see if I'm right.
ditto the noise in the cinema!
Imelda was just brilliant and don't you think Jason Isaacs as Lucius is hot stuff?!
Helena B.C will always be Lucy Honeychurch to some of us dear, sigh
I do agree with the eating in cinemas issue. There is a strong case for all films being automatically rated 18 to solve this problem
I'm a real Imelda S fan - but that Thatcher lookalike piccy is unnerving! Their politics couldn't be more divergent.
I think one author said that turning over his book to film makers was like handing over his first born to be raised by wolves. So I would count on any resemblance to the book being purely coincidental. Golden Compass? Rather depends on if they're going for a US audience and, if so, how many of them will have a clue as to what 'Northern Lights' are........Not many, I'd have thought.
Thanks for the review M&M. I'm off to see it tonight I hope. The crew have seen it and all were a tad disappointed, but I shall make up my own mind, although the constant gurning of Ron always grates with me.
Heard IS interviewed and she did base the character on Mrs T.
I don't know if you know the "Dark is Rising" books, but the new film of them has apparently taken some fairly major liberties with the story. I enjoyed the Harry Potter more than the book and I did love the cute kittens in Imelda's study. Just the thing for my own study, I think.
The eating doesn't bother me as much as the children who kick, kick, kick your seat right the way through the movie. Such a pity I cannot set the dementors on them.
Imelda Staunton really was the star of the show, I thought. Didn't think of the Thatcher connection, but it is, as Mopsa says, unnerving.
I think Hermione's eyebrows are devotees of the Roger Moore school of acting.
I am with you on the noisy kids thing...i saw this sans enfants, (for once) and really wanted to shoot the thoughtless parents that had dragged a small child along.
I'm going to whisper this...but was a lot of the acting rather wooden? And Daniel whatsisname will look a lot better when he has grown into his body...or am i just getting old?!
SAHD, why oh hy can't they leave names as they are? You don't know what it means... well, then learn!
Brom, I look forward to your lookie-likies...
Ziggi, Mr Malfoy is utterly gorgeous - great voice and lots of charisma. Alan Rickman does it for me too - even as Snape!
Rilly, I love A Room with a View. Like the Harry Potter series, it features my future mother in law, sigh ...
Mopsa, it was the performance as much as the styling that put me in mind of our erstwhile leader...
OM, when I sell the film rights to a boook, I will insist on beign script editor!
@themill, don't do the 5.30pm showing at the Metro Centre! It makes sense that Ms Staunton was going for the Iron lady caricature ..
Jane, how marvellous to have dementors at one's disposal! there was a trailer for the Dark is Rising, but I haven't read the book.
Rob, Imelda was very very good.
Gill, you could be right!
Pig, Hermione and the twins were I thought rather wooden ...
oh yes Alan Rickman - for me he'll always be the dead husband in Truly Madly Deeply - *sigh*
haven't seen the new film yet, no time you see, now, when it's out on dvd then...........
I read all the books to the children but let the hubs take them to the films as they always get the DVD anyway and I watch it then. I think though you hit the nail on the head about the age business, HP is really for older children but because of the marketing and parents ignorance children who are too young get taken to see it.
I wish food was banned from cinema veiwings as it is a problem whenever you go but they want the revenue from the exorbitant prices they charge for it.
I gave up on HP films after No 2 as my highly overactive imagination couldn't cope - even with the lovely Alan R. I'm longing to see the Golden Compass - out in December, apparently. Other than Nicole Kidman I don't know who's in it though.
I think you have a good point. The only place where children can eat sweets in public is at the cinema. In the bright light of day it is organic raisins and rice cakes for all to see, but poor school holiday mothers desperate to watch a film fill their little ones with jellies - or is that just me?
Went to the 7.50 at the Gate and not a child in the audience - mind you some of the adults were just as bad. Poor Hermione gets more wooden with every film, Imelda was joyous, but I have to confess I thought young Daniel Radcliffe turned in a mightily mature performance as the eponymous hero. Would rather have liked to have seen him in Equus.
Doesn't he look a bit too old to still be at schoool though?
I'm looking forward to seeing Northern Lights in the cinema, the fact that they are using the American title though does disturb me a bit.
Not sure Nicole Kidman is quite right really, they should have used Samantha Morton or Tilda Swinton.
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