I just got back from my little excursion, 4 hours after I had left. Let me explain.
So, on my way to the newly discovered Barnes & Noble, I past the Lowes theater again. As they say, Curious George. I stick my head in there again, and see that they have a showing at 11:15pm available (the 10:30 showing was sold out). So now was the decision. I could leave the theater and proceed to B&N as per the itinerary and try to round up someone from my floor to go see the movie with sometime next week OR get a ticket now and go to the bookstore until 10:45 at which time, I would walk a block back to the theater (which is about 6 blocks from my place) and watch it until 2am. Not really a hard decision for me because I actually wanted to see the movie (despite the hype), and I'm not the type to give someone else the power to decide whether I do something or not (which in this case, is their consent to come along with me). So I proceed to the ticket line.
So everything was according to plan. I went to B&N and bought myself a few reads. I then go to the theater and saw a Hagrid walking out with his family. So I line up and go into the theater. My seat wasn't too far in back, an isle seat on the left side of theater. I have to admit that the previews were LONG. There were like 6 trailers PLUS 3-4 significant advertisement trailers. My favorite one was the little clip about turning off cell phones. It was something along these lines: "Please set your cell phone on silent or turn it off. If it rings during the movie, we will pause the movie, make you stand up, and pass red jellybeans to everyone in the theater." Meanwhile on screen, there's a little stickman being pelted with jelly beans. Rather hilarous. And out of the previews, the new Jim Carrey movie seems interesting. Everything else was catered towards kids (i.e. Scooby Doo, that movie about the horse by Dreamworks, etc).
Before I do a little review of the movie, I'll say that I like it considering that I've read the book before. It's nice to finally know how to pronounce "Hermione" (HER-MY-OH-KNEE) correctly. The movie didn't really flow well, though, and it seems like they only put in the major scenes, and not plot-building scenes, but that's to be expected in a book-to-movie translation. It's a little scary at times though, and the reviewers are right, some scenes might be a bit much for kids.
WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD.
One thing that I thought was kinda wrong was that they made Hermione really stuck-up. She is in the book, however, she sees to be really friendly too. To be honest, I liked Hermione in the book, even with her swagger. In the movie they kinda overdid it. And then there's the issue with the loose plot. I'm sure that 90% of the people in that jam-packed theater knew the story, so having it only show the major scenes was alright. But if it was the first time I saw it, I might be confused because they leave out a lot of the not-so-important, but still essential plot-building events. As a consequence, a few things in the movie seemed really disjoint. For example, Quidditch wasn't even an issue. They showed the first game, but it wasn't ever touched upon for the rest of the movie. Maybe it was just to have an action sequence for the movie. The Quidditch game looked spectacular though. Kinda brutal, but the camera shots were awesome. But besides that, I think they did a pretty good job converting it from a book to a screenplay. A lot of the scenes they showed were similar to what I had in my mind when I was reading it (which is a good thing because that tells me I read correctly =)). The casting was great and everyone fit their part perfectly, especially that kid as Harry Potter. The invisible cloat sequences were very impressive too.
So this movie gets a thumbs up from me, given that the viewer has read the book. Otherwise I'd say to go read the book before watching the movie.
Posted by jupiterstar at November 18, 2001 03:11 AM