Nothing Up My Sleeve

Rating: Null/10 (20 July 2007)

There were previous editions of the franchise that I liked. One had a real rhythm; another leveraged architecture in a truly competent way.
I suppose if you are invested in the books, this one advances the story a bit: some few revelations; another battle, another death; another new character. But I am not invested in the books. I'm invested in the cinematic adventure that comes from a film that is well made. This one isn't, and it cannot be blamed on the choppy nature of the source material.
The effects are decidedly cheaper, and in some spots even bad. There's an encounter between the three "children" and a giant. Its handled the way it would have been in the fifties or before. Watch as the girl is picked up, then put down; see how awkwardly the camera moves so that it is never looking where you might so that it doesn't have to show something difficult.
The effects, by the way are wildly uneven. We all know that projects like this job out scenes to dozens of subcontractors all over the planet. Each one uses a different set of tools, a different notion of how the camera behaves and frames, a different belief in the cosmology of magic and an often radically different set of artistic values. So some special effects scenes are honky bad as mentioned. Some of the better ones (there's a fireworks scene) belong in a different movie and surely a different world.
And of course since the director is weak, the older characters played by veteran actors are incoherent. Each is left to create their own character and inhabit their own world. Can anyone believe that the characters played by Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Thompson could exist in the same dramatic world? Can anyone believe that Rickman and Gambon were ever in the same universe in terms of how they were allowed to see themselves?
The director is weak because the producers are so frippin rigid and dumb that any talented director refused the offer. Rumors are that a score were approached.
So far as the scenes, there were only two that I found tolerable. One was a fireworks scene. It was more cartoonish than we have seen in any Potter movie so far, but at least it was dimensional. The second is a few seconds in the final battle where thirty foot corridors of shelves collapse and the globes on those break and fall, or fall and break. Its a static shot, but well imagined.
Except for those moments, you'll be checking your watch. There's no magic, and we just don't care about these now unattractive people.
If you get your kicks from making fun at inept governments with a hint that the screwups may be motivated by conspiracy beyond stupidity -- and notions that an assistant (here white) and mouthpiece is a woman who lives in a fantasy world who explains reality away, you'll find that here. But not in an interesting way.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.