Open Forum Friday: What is the Best Harry Potter Film (So Far)?
Okay, so maybe it’s a bit early to be passing a final judgment on the entire Harry Potter film franchise with two more entries still to come, but now that we are at the fifth film in the series, there are more than enough installments to allow us to sit down and compare notes. Unlike most franchises, Harry Potter hasn’t necessarily gone progressively downhill in terms of quality. Four different directors have each taken turns at the helm, and each has given us a slightly different take on the world and its characters, yielding no simple consensus on what is the best film. Personally I don’t know if I can choose a favourite (I’d probably lean towards the first one) but I’m pretty sure that the Goblet of Fire was my least favourite of the bunch. I still have yet to see the Order of the Phoenix, but we’ll have a review ready for this week’s podcast. What is your favourite? I’m very curious to see how the poll results from this one turn out. Give us your thoughts here on Open Forum Friday.
Comments (8)
Read the books, they are far superior to the films, as it always is.
Posted by Glenn on July 13th, 2007My two favorite I’ve determined, are the two with the more divisive reactions – Azkaban, and Order of the Phoenix.
After listening to Filmspotting today talk about the better parts about this one, the political undertones about fascism, etc – I think I was actually moved to like it even more, and look forward to seeing it again. Potter really does take a much more active role in this new one than any one before, where things just happen TO him.
Posted by Goon on July 13th, 2007also, if theres any reason why it hasnt gone downhill (even though there are some storytelling devices, like the newspapers/talking letters, etc that have grown annoying) its because the source material is so set, and in fact most people believe the source material improved with each book.
Posted by Goon on July 13th, 2007Azkaban. All the others are overrated crap.
Posted by Elrix on July 14th, 2007I like the second movie. It had some good scares near the end and was a very concise plot. The third one was bullshit, it butchered some of the most important stuff of the book, just for running time. I know you want to make it work as a movie, and I guess as a movie it doesn’t need to be there, but how much character do you sacrifice for running time? You even had Black talking about the map to Harry, and don’t bring it up! Cuaron is overrated crap (internet-wise. Nobody gives a fuck about him outside of nerds.)
Posted by Henrik on July 14th, 2007Yeah, nobody gives a damn about Cuaron except the nerds, most of the internet users, the critics, most of the movie festivals and award shows. I guess you need to be a stupid guy from some place where they don’t use the internet very often to see exactly how overrated Cuaron is.
Posted by Elrix on July 15th, 2007“it butchered some of the most important stuff of the book, just for running time.”
bullshit argument, same as the argument of the new one doing the same is bullshit. what do you want, a 5 hour movie to make it include everything? for them to split it in two parts and let the actors grow even older so they dont look the teenage part anymore?
a movie is not a book. Cuaron and Yates did the best they could fitting so much in so little time, and from what i can tell Cuaron had the harder book to condense. With that in mind the films are entirely coherent and actually move faster than the other ones because the filler isnt so abundant.
Posted by Goon on July 15th, 2007It wouldn’t have been an issue if the movie had been 2½ hours long as it is. But wasn’t it less than 2 hours? Certainly felt it.
And I don’t think it’s bullshit. It’s one of the few things that made me appreciate the books as being genuinely good, rather than fun kiddie fluff.
Posted by Henrik on July 16th, 2007Leave a Reply