HP

HP (as my ultra-cool mom put it) is not a very good movie. For those of you like me who are struggling to reach the heights of coolness, HP stands for Harry Potter.
The little one and I watched the 2hour 45 minute saga of Harry Potter winning the tri-wizard tournament while duelling with the Dark Lord. It often reminded me of the times when I sat in Wardha cinemas watching movies like "Gadar". Good action sequences interspersed with dollops of ham acting, poor characterisation and trite dialogues.
At least in Wardha we were allowed to voice our disapproval of both the movie or at least distinct scenes. While watching movies at the Odeon in Oxford sitting alongside the little one, it was an entirely different matter. Forced to keep mum whenever I attempted to criticise or vent my frustration (which was quite often) I took recourse to eating popcorn rather than watch the movie.

To give the movie some credit, the last 15 minutes of Voldemort and HP's duel is very well done. Its edited neatly, there arent any superfluous scenes or over-sentimentality over Cedric's death. The rebirth of Voldemort has been shot wonderfully well,especially keeping in mind that its a very difficult thing to give a face to someone who has never had one. In my opinion its the movies highlight.

Other than that, the tournament is glossed over. The book has about 150 pages describing each task and fleshing out the characters of HP's competitors, while the movie spends about 15 minutes. I thought this was the best book of the lot because of the tournament and all its intricacies. The movie just focuses on HP. No lines for Viktor Krum and the other girl competitor, just kisses to Hermione and Ron by each one respectively.

Albus Dumbledore needs to be recast soon. Ian Mckellan was brilliant compared to this guy. This guy sucks. Albus is always the omnipotent,omniscient righteous infuence through the magic world, but here he seems afraid, clueless and impotent. Its ghastly keeping in mind that his disappearance in the 6th book is especially shocking because of the way his character is dealt with in the earlier books. The movies are going to crash if he doesn't get his act together(pun intended)

Mad Eye Moody is the saving grace in the movie. What a role and so well played. He acts the mad auror to a T. His first scene with the spider and unforgivable curses is brilliant.
He is the only person to keep you engrossed through the movie. I also think that the movie starts off on a dark note and all the dark scenes are very well conceived and filmed. Even the sets are very good.

On the other hand, the complete absence of screen time to Ron, hermione and their relationship with HP is a big negative for the movie. Snape,the competitors dont feature in the movie at all.

Overall, my assessment is that for 165 minutes of screen time, its a waste. I love the action scenes and the last scence with Voldemort, but I would wait for the DVD and watch it on Home video instead of the cinema. If you are a big HP fan, dont go in expecting too much.
Sit back, buy some popcorn and wait for the good bits!