My hearsay is very different from your hearsay. In my experience, it's universally hated only by those fans of the books who care about nothing other than the slavish replication of every single event or piece of information they deem significant and throw a fit at the slightest departure from the text. And I've only heard about such people on the internet, I've never met any of them personally. The Prisoner of Azkaban is the first film that actually feels like a Harry Potter film, and the first one that has anything unique or distinctive to offer as cinema. The two Columbus films, while competent in many ways (and "cute," as Domino says) represent the most obvious and banal adaptation of these books that Hollywood could possibly make. Every aspect of the films' craft takes an outstanding leap when Cuarón takes over (acting, cinematography, production design; even John Williams considerably outpaces his own previous work in the series). The only thing worthy of universal hatred is that it containsmfunk9786 wrote:Fans of the books almost universally hate it, me being one.Tom Hagen wrote:Isn't that the Cuarón one that everyone loves?
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what is possibly the worst-looking werewolf in the entire history of cinema.
Indeed, though for me the film in which her acting is most distractingly off is Goblet of Fire. But since she's rather good in the films right before and after that one, I'm inclined to blame Mike Newell. Anyway, I was also very impressed with Watson's performance in the last two installments, for all the reasons Roger Ryan went into. I can't help feeling a little underwhelmed by Deathly Hallows Part 2, however. The big climactic battle contains a handful of solid moments, but overall it's very haphazardly staged and edited (for the first time in the entire series, I felt very confused about the layout of the castle grounds) and it never achieves a very satisfying rhythm. I also felt it didn't do a very good job of hitting some of its emotional points, and there's a curious inconsistency in the waffling portrayal of realistic and fantastical death. Still, it has several redeeming qualities. The resolution of Snape's storyline is very powerful, and Alan Rickman handles it superbly. Ralph Fiennes, Warwick Davis, and Helena Bonham Carter also do their best work in the whole series. Lots of peripheral characters get their own memorable moments. The dragon looks great. Alexandre Desplat does a fine job, even if Yates still seems sort of unsure about how to use music effectively. But ultimately I just didn't feel as emotionally engaged with this one as I have with the previous films, even Deathly Hallows Part 1, and that's particularly disappointing considering this is the end of it all and there's so much death, love and sacrifice going on.matrixschmatrix wrote:I mean seriously, look how terrible Emma Watson is in the Columbus movie, it's painful to watch
Incidentally, I saw this in 3D. Aside from one or two distractingly gimmicky effects shots, it's completely superfluous and sometimes even nonsensical (as in any of the several close-ups that use very shallow focus). There is no reason at all to see it this way.