by Paul » Wednesday 11 December 2002 9:03:03pm
I'm probably one of the last ones to see the movie but I visited the cinema today and it was absolutely brilliant. My trick of waiting until now and going during the daytime in the middle of the week to avoid the crowds worked perfectly - there were only about 20 people in the theatre and no annoyances at all.
Like the first movie, I thought it remained brilliantly true to the book and any diversions from the book itself were so slight as to be no problem - in fact I think some things did add to the book.
Like some have said already, I'd pictured Dobby slghtly differently when reading the book but by the time I saw the movie I'd gotten used to his movie-look and ended up thinking he was actually quite perfect. After all, the way lucius Malfoy seems to be, I can't see Dobby being a well-fed looking house-elf as Malfoy probably did half-starve him.
The fact that Lucius Malfoy is definately a nasty piece of work comes across so well in the movie - If you doubt how awful he is, remember, he's the one who gave Ginny the diary. If it wasn't for Harry, Ginny would have ended up dead because of this, and in the movie, if it wasn't for Dobby's protection, Harry might have been murdered by Lucius's Avada curse.
I thought the Basilisk scene was totally brilliant and brought the book totally to life. I'd been wondering so much how they'd do that scene and think it was absolutely perfect - yes, some slight differences to the book but (I hope this isn't herecy) I think it was actually better than I'd pictured it from the book.
On the other hand, like Broccoli mentioned, how could they miss out Ginny's poem? Actually I think Ginny should have had a lot more screen-time overall. The way she ran away from Harry when they first met at the Weasley's house <b>was</b> good (and funny) but if you've not read the books, I'm not sure whether in the movie overall you'd have realised how much of a crush she had on Harry throughout.
One thing that surprised me is that moaning Myrtle seemed to fancy Harry though. I didn't quite get that idea from the book but it was an interesting twist.
On the subject of romance, yes, I think the movie did seem to make it kind-of clear that Ron and Hermione may have some feelings for each other, although I may be wrong.
Yikes - those spiders were frightening. I loved the 3D sound too!
And the animals were brilliant - Errol was totaly hilarious and Hedwig and Fawkes were both absolutely beautiful.
I love the way too that Hogwarts is starting to feel like "home" in the movies - and so pleased to know this is still only movie number 2 out of 7 (or maybe even more if rumours are right about them splitting book 4 into two movies due to length!). Chris Columbus is definitely to be applauded as director and he's a hero in being able to bring a true-to-the-books Hogwarts to the screens. It's sad to know he's decided to stop after this movie but I've just read that he's not ruled out returning at some point. The new director of The Prisoner of Azkaban, Alfonso Cuaron has a lot to live up to but hopefully we'll have another great movie next year.
Until then, there's still the DVD to look forward to, and it'll be highly interesting to know it there are any extra scenes on the DVD that aren't in the movie - who knows, we may see Ginny's poem after all (I'm just hoping - don't want to start any rumours yet!)
Overall, if you've not guessed by now, I was totally bowled over by the movie. Absolutely brilliant!