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Here's the review posted by Duncan Shepherd. Love it!clark
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Review by Duncan Shepherd
Published November 27, 2002Die Another Day, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Treasure Planet
Kiddie corner: In the second screen adaptation of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, our now pubescent hero fumbles his way to a giant, squirming, slithering basilisk (syn., cockatrice) via a concealed orifice in the girls' lavatory, the haunt of a ghost called Moaning Myrtle: "Harry, if you die down there, you're welcome to share my toilet." Symbol-hunters, go to it! (The potty, the hole, the lizard, the moans, la mort....) But do not neglect, while you are at it, the Master Race motif of the Aryan-blond "pure-bloods" seeking to purge their school of the mongrelized "muggle-borns." Chris Columbus's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, or for short, Harry Chamber Pot, is unforgivably overlong and overstuffed, at a little past two and a half hours. Yet one is bound to agree with some of the obliging blurbists that this one is "better than the first," regardless of the relative heat or chill of one's enthusiasm. "There is a plot," as pointed out by the computer-generated Dobby, a sort of Jar Jar Binks Jr., "a plot to make most terrible things happen." Right. So much for plot. (More of it, at any rate, than in the first one, and less preamble.) Viewed, however, as a seam-bursting compilation of state-of-the-art special effects -- the flying car, the crash-landing of same in the Whomping Willow, the errant owl, the Blue Pixies, the Eight-Legged Freaks, etc., etc. -- the film can be faulted only for its lack of let-up and its absence of judgment: faults so common these days as to have become norms. And as far as faults go, none goes farther than the upchucking of half-foot slugs by the poor little Weasley boy, a more "realistic" effect than you could possibly want. (Pass the chamber pot, please.) Still, that giant basilisk, its eyes pecked out by a reconstituted phoenix, is good enough to overcome the jaw-slackening monotony of it all, even to overcome the carbon-copy Alien moment of the hero nose to nose with the mucus-dripping monster. Kenneth Branagh, somewhat unexpectedly, turns out to be a welcome newcomer as a preening, peacockish, all-talk-and-no-show "celebrity" wizard. Or in any event the character is welcome, if not the slumming actor. And there is ample opportunity to bid farewell to the late Richard Harris in the role of Headmaster Dumbledore. In sequels hereafter, the beard and pointed hat should be roughly as hard to fill as the costume of a department-store Santa.
Follow Ups:
Except for all the Freudian stuff . . . "our now pubescent hero fumbles his way to a giant, squirming, slithering basilisk (syn., cockatrice) via a concealed orifice in the girls' lavatory". . .. give me a break. This guy probably gets aroused by watching the gophers dig up his lawn.But yeah, it was a bad movie. My mom wanted us to take her to see Harry Potter II for her birthday . . and it was painful. Lots of intense special effects and action sequences . . for apparently no reason when taken in context of the rest of the film. Oh, and there are too many intentionally annoying sounds - the screaming of Mandrake trees which is supposed to cause instant death to whomever hears it. When reproduced through a theater sound system with 20,000 watts I can assure you they're not kidding about the instant death part.
I'm sure it's fun for kids who have just read the book . . but that doesn't make it a good movie. Literal interpretations of adventure books make for flawed movies. A book needs something fun to happen every other page . . . the joy is in a neverending adventure, not climax and resolution. In a movie, you need to achieve climax and resolution by the end of the film . . the neverending adventure just gets boring when you have to sit through 3 hours of it. Action sequences must have some greater meaning to the movie's outcome.
Anyways, I think I'm just projecting a lot of my frustration with having to sit through a 3 hour movie surrounded by little kids and obnoxious parents. This was the first time I've been to a normal theater in 3 years. When did they start showing TV commercials at the beginning of movies? I felt dirty afterwards. Back to Netflix and theater pubs for me!
IMO your "guy" is full of shit, seems like he's a relative of the Malfoys.The movie isn't perfect and Branagh is a bit over the top, etc. Still, it's an enjoyable movie of worth.
If you haven't seen it, fuck off!
.
You didn't say you saw it yourself. BTW, did you read the books?
Why the animosity?
w
I hear such words so often, it being the derivative of the average engineering comment towards things that are ungood, that it has no meaning for me. Just as George Carlin said...
Was a post deleted or what? My original comment in this thread doesn't make sense in the current context? If nothing changed since last night, then...forget it...I now have no idea where I got the stated impression.
Yeah... all the beauty is gone now... such shame... we may even have to talk about movies!
You are of good disposition, for overlooking things that aren't really important. Back to movies it is...
;^)
... apparently have similar thoughts about it. Why the fixation with tall towers? And just what is that chasm of doom? Apparently in the next installment, the all-male band will have to pass TWO towers to deliver the ring to that chasm of doom. Hmm.I know that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but not this time.
...miss the symbolism of the eye of Sauron. To preoccupoed with phallic imagery, eh?
Wasn't paying careful attention after the first few minutes. I think we're talking about the same image, which I have mis-identified. Come to think of it, that did look a little like an eye, didn't it?
Several people believe the eye to look like something else...a particular part of female anatomy...think hard...(giggle, snert.)Me, I don't buy it. If I looked for sexual imagery all the time I'd never get any work done. ;-)
Towers, eyes, it's all in the book anyway.
...because, honestly, I didn't realize that was supposed to be an eye before you mentioned it. Sometimes when I'm viewing what is in essence a children's movie, you look for more entertaining diversions below the surface. Don't get me started on Disney's "Aladdin"...
Best reviews of FOTR are over at salon.com
...is not a children's movie, nor was it a children's book.If you don;t geddit, maybe move on.
I really meant no offense by calling it a children's movie. I was mistaken in calling it that and I apologize if I offended anyone. Maybe the terminology "fantasy movie" would have been a more apt description. There is, of course, some universal appeal to stories of this type. FWIW, I enjoy many movies which are ostensibly "children's movies" and did not mean to imply that I am necessarily "above" viewing them (within reason). I can still enjoy movies like Star Wars, Star Trek, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, etc. although I realize that they were meant to appeal primarily to a young audience.I've never had much interest in the sword and sorcery genre, but it's clear that LOTR is much better than most.
LOTR is the original source for Sword & Sorcery, SW etc. which bear about as much resemblance to LOTR as Demtrius & the Gladiators does to the Bible.
LOtR is a very sophisticated epic that transcends genre and age classification. Tolkein constructed a complex world where courage was defined through self-sacrifice for the greater good and strength of character, in the end, is more important than physical strength; the author meticulously avoided intentional symbolism or contemporary allegorical content that might've dated his work. My play on words (i.e., Freud-o Baggins, refering to both Sigmund Freud's obsession with sexual symbolism and Frodo's relative innocence) was intended as a humorous jab at Clark's favorite critic reading so much sexual innuendo into Harry Potter, not as an openning for extending those critical impressions to LOtR. Since Harry Potter is demographically marketed to children and young adults Mr. Shepherd's critical comments seem especially vitriolic, not to mention way off base.AuPh
Yes.Just saw "HP" yesterday with my 11-year old daughter. I thought its pacing was much better than "Sourcer's Stone," which seemed dramatically "flat." I was not conscious of its length, except for the fact that, before the film, I had imbibed a "grande" Starbucks coffee, with the usual and predictable result -- and didn't want to leave the film before the end.
I'm not sure what expectations people bring to a film like this. Mine are simply to be entertained -- and, on that level, I was satisfied.
I have to say, that I'm not sure I liked this computer-generated elf any better than Jar-Jar Binks. Somehow, it seemed to have been generated by the same program, with the same repertory of expressions, ear movements and so own. At least the ersatz Jamacian patois was omitted!
The CGI elf was a trifle annoying, but the character grows on you because his plight does evoke a modicum of sympathy. OTOH, there was no excuse in that galaxy far far away for a character like Jar-Jar Binks; he was completely obnoxious regardless of which parts were generated by computer imaging. Played for laughs Jar-Jar was so stupid and slapstick that it made any empathetic connection with the character impossible; once sympathy and empathy go out the door disappointment comes innuendo! ;^)AuPh
... instead of watching it while I run on the treadmill. The treadmill is noisy and distracting. I've evidently missed a lot that's worthwhile in the movie.
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