Unmagical

Rating: Null/10 (3 December 2005)

The bottom line is that the first two films engaged us on the sheer visual invention of the magical world. The third film was a good film as a film, architectural, Sculpted rhythm that matched the physical spaces shown.
This one fails on both accounts. Oh, you will read that it attempts too much, coming of age meets thriller and so on. But I think it was simply a matter of not having a creative team in place that cared to make a good movie.
There was only one cool effect: the seven Pegasii. And there was only one interesting character, Moaning Myrtle. Just one.
So on the superficial level, the comment is that the basic film-making skills were absent.
But wait! This is the guy behind "Pushing Tin" and "Enchanted April," both supremely well done.
So it must have been the producers that made this bloodless, a walk through the required scenes.
So very strange, because the last one was all about rich film-making, It had a center, following the Orson Welles tradition that anchored the thing in the buildings. Why goof with expertise?
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.