Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

It strikes me that when I started watching Harry Potter movies, I was still in college. A full decade later, much has changed in my life and in the fictional lives of the characters in the movies. I confess that I have not read any of the books, being more into the more 'serious' Tolkien stories. I have however, always applauded the fact that Harry Potter books actually got children to read rather long books, which is a good and increasingly rare thing. I did watch all the movies and enjoyed them to varying degrees from the light-hearted first movie to the darker and more serious later instalments. And so we come to the final movie of the long saga.

***Minor spoilers as usual; you did watch the first part, right? Right?***






The movie opens abruptly exactly where the last one left off with Big V (Ralph Fiennes) taking possession of the Elder Wand. After burying Dobby (sniff) with honour, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) set off to find the remaining horcruxes they need to destroy in order to defeat the Dark Lord. It's hard to say more without spoilers, but it's obvious that there will be trouble, adventure, more than a few fantastic creatures, some laughs, some tears, and battles of a magical nature. The classic multi-front battle is well executed with a large battle on one front and several small groups on side-quests to achieve the main objectives that will lead to victory.

The movie doesn't disappoint in the effects department. The creatures are utterly convincing, insomuch as mythical creatures can be convincing. The magical bolts are pretty and deadly. Other spell effects are nicely done and particularly awe-inspiring in the big battle scenes. Sets are impressively constructed and very detailed. Having not read the books, I don't know how closely the movie follows the books, but I imagine it is as close as it could be within the confines of a movie. The pacing is handled well with lulls between action pieces for the audience to catch its collective breath and take stock of the status of all the characters.

The acting in the lead and secondary roles are very good especially in the secondary roles played by veteran actors. Fiennes is menacing and gets to make creepy voices exhorting people to turn on Harry and his friends. Alan Rickman is wonderfully complex in his characterisation of Snape. Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint are dependable as they have been throughout the movies but are sometimes overshadowed by the more experienced thespians.

On the downside, I only have a few little nit-picks. Granted, this is more of a problem with me rather than the movie, but the lore is a little thick and may be confusing to those who haven't read the book or remembered the previous movies. I've had to read up on the interwebs to fully understand some things. The 3-D is pretty good for a conversion and some of the CG elements were well-served by the extra apparent dimension, but due to most of the movie being so dark and gloomy, the dimness caused by the 3-D glasses made it really hard to see things. If I had to do it over, I would give the 3-D version a pass. Lastly, I will also say that I was not impressed with the make-up work in a particular scene.

This last instalment in the long-running franchise ties up the whole plot nicely and is quite satisfying a conclusion. It's weird that there won't be a Harry Potter movie next year, but I'm grateful to have experienced the whole ride. Kudos to the author, directors, actors, writers, and all involved for a magical 10 years.

For bringing fantasy and magic to a generation, I give Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, and the series at large, eight out of 10 baby seals.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

After the fiasco that was last week, I finally got to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon in all its 3-D glory. I bravely watched it at the same cinema because it was still the easiest place to get tickets. After months of seeing the trailers and that extra one week delay, I have to say... meh.

***Whole bunch of spoilers, but who cares really?***

This third and perhaps/hopefully final instalment of Michael Bay's foray into movies with giant robots opens with scenes of the war in Cybertron. A lone Autobot ship escapes with some super-high-tech-stuff but unfortunately gets shot at and crashes on (surprise, surprise) our moon. The film posits the idea that the US-Russia space race of the 60s was in response to this crash-landing on the dark side of the moon. Scenes are cleverly spliced with actual footage to show the moon landing as a cover for investigating the huge vessel.

All well and good, so far.

But not for long.

Then we get to the much less interesting Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) who is apparently still unemployed despite having saved the world twice. He has also apparently been dumped by Megan Fox who must have finally realized she was way out of his league. On the bright side, he has inexplicably landed another hot chick called Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley). After too many scenes of Sam being annoyingly annoying, we eventually get back to the giant freaking robots. The Autobots find out that the US has been sitting on the location of the alien craft and Optimus is not pleased. They travel to the moon in a spaceship they conveniently seem to have made/bought/stole/conjured and retrieve what's left of the technology which turns out to be an instant wormhole generator system. They also find their long lost former leader Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy) who invented the thing.

Despite being told not to interfere, Sam annoyingly does anyway and investigates on his own. Surprisingly, he finds out things that the military 'intelligence' were unable to find out themselves and so they let him play with them after all. An unexpected betrayal causes humanity to reject the Autobots and ask them to leave Earth, leaving us to fend for ourselves against the Decepticons. To make matters worse, Carly's boss Dylan (Patrick Dempsey) turns out to be as slimy as he seems and Sam has to wade into enemy territory to save her - and hopefully the world, again - sans giant robots.

Even more so than the last movie, this one suffers from incredibly choppy editing, jarring tone shifts, murky plot, silly dialogue, poor script, lack of narrative cohesion, and under-average acting. Speaking of acting, some scenes with Sam and Carly are particularly cringe-inducing. LeBeouf seems to be getting tired of this role or I just don't find the character endearing any more after two movies of him getting whinier and more fidgety. Huntington-Whiteley is little more than window-dressing. Ken Jeong appears so insanely over-the-top that the performance is only a little funny. John Malkovich has an enjoyable appearance. Frances McDormand gives an unremarkable performance. John Turturro is still a little amusing at least in his recurring role. The script doesn't do the actors any favours and features far too many out-of-place and forced one-liners.

The film is not without some silver linings in an otherwise dark cloud. Bumblebee is still adorable. Optimus is still cool. Nimoy makes an awesome giant robot. The effects are quite impressive especially the giant-evil-sandworm-from-hell. The 3-D effects are actually well-implemented and most of the show seems to have been filmed in 3-D. The film seemed not as dim as most 3-D shows. Towards the second half of the movie, the pace improves (not hugely, but better than the tedious first half). Some of the robot battles and other action sequences were actually quite fun to watch, even if some of the battles were too quick and confusing which is not helped by the Decepticons all looking almost the same.

While technically compelling, this latest instalment proves that the series could really use a reboot and/or a new director. They can keep the effects team though. Maybe put more focus on the robots instead of the unnecessary humans.

For technological achievement and for Bumblebee, I give this movie three out of 10 baby seals.

EPIC FAIL

There would be a Transformers: Dark of the Moon review here, but unfortunately I didn't get to see it today.

I had pre-purchased tickets to watch Transformers in 3D at Cathay Cineplexes at The Curve today. We got there a wee bit late but we made it while the trailers were still playing. We got our 3D glasses and sat down. There were audio issues. The Captain America trailer (which looked pretty good) had no sound but instead had the filler music track they use in between movies. Then they tried to play the movie... with no sound.

They tried again.

Darkness. Picture. Silence.

And again.

More darkness. Silent film.

And again.

Then they rebooted the projector.

And still no audio.

Then they turned on the lights and announced that the projector was broken and they were cancelling the show. Refunds were to be given at the counters :(

In all my years of watching movies - quite a few of them at this very cinema - never has a show been cancelled. They didn't even have the sense to offer additional compensation for the inconvenience.

So to Cathay Cineplexes at The Curve, I say to thee: EPIC FAIL