I went out to see the fourth Harry Potter film (trailer), last night, with Tom, Simon and Katy. I'd not read any of the books, nor seen any of the previous films. So it was all a bit of a mystery. Simon's t-shirt adding to the whole experience, marvellously.
It was a good film, enjoyable, a bit scary and entertaining. Most of it made sense without knowing anything about the Harry Potter world and that world seemed to be more sophisticated than I'd expected. I understand that this is the best of the four films so far, from Tom. The earlier films like the books are apparently weaker too. So maybe I'll join the masses and read Harry Potter. Perhaps unlike His Dark Materials they are set to improve until the end. The final book of that trilogy, The Amber Spyglass disappoints, I feel.
Back to the film, the special effects are wonderful, they make the creatures, the magic and the buildings feel very real. The acting is fine, with enough teenage angst humour to cut through what might be a bit staid and 1950s if played straight. Some of the adult roles must have been great fun to play.
In terms of trailers, Narnia looks too clean and prissy, King Kong on the other hand looks the part.
Now, you see, I'm gonna have to be a bit contentious here and say that I think the HP books (as in the boy, not the sauce) have been getting worse... not better. The early ones were fun and energetic - and short. These later ones are too wordy and take themselves too seriously (IMHO) - even JK herself has said that #5 could have done with some trimming.
That's a good t-shirt.
J'agree avec toi about the Dark Materials books - Amber Spyglass felt a bit tedious.
I have to agree, the last 2 HP books have felt like a bit of a chore. The structure is almost exactly the same across the books (each a year at Hogwarts) and you know that the key piece of information will not appear until the last couple of chapters. Those chapters getting increasingly far away as the books get bigger.
I agree with the Amber Spyglass as well, but at least it showed a rich vein of invention and imagination, which I feel the last HP book was missing. Why do I read em? because I do like the charaters and I enjoy finding out what does happen to them next (and it is the peripheral characters that have the interesting stuff happen to them, HP is kind of predictable).
So, who's for Sirius' brother in the next book????
mark.
Hello you're too handsome harry i luv you