Not So Magical Marionettes

Rating: Null/10 (14 July 2007)

Wow, what a disappointment. The Potter series is on its way south. Here it continues to devolve into that dreaded practice of film-making-by-committee. So much art is an inherent threat to success, especially in film stories regarded as Big Money "properties" that must be engineered for mass appeal, thus we see very little artfulness in such movies. And when it does show up you figure it had to be sneaked in somewhere. Because the creation of these projects involves so many different perspectives from multiple creative departments it's that much more difficult for the director to enforce an overall vision. When we see things in the picture that we like then it is usually something self-contained that doesn't integrate into our movie experience as a whole. All of which is true of this. It has the expected assortment of qualities we admire -- individual scenes lifted from the book, the performances, the preservation of Rowling's politics, stylistic touches -- but it's all detached. Fragmented.
Of course the powers that be at Warner were going to persevere in this vein. They've refined the process of manufacturing and distributing these installments into an efficient, mechanized groove and they don't want to rock the boat. That's why we've had a couple of hack "yes" men behind the camera for the past two movies. Yet when we last had a truly capable artist at the helm -- when Alfonso Cuaron took over from the comparatively untalented Columbus for "Prisoner of Azkaban" -- I was hopeful. He took the myriad elements of Rowling's world that Columbus transmuted and infused them with an expansive, three-dimensional rendering that the earlier films lacked. The series finally became cinematic. When that happened it looked as though we'd have distinctive visions, from a carefully selected slew of directors, that would be imprinted on each successive sequel. Instead you can look at this and "Goblet of Fire" and see that almost everything good in both of them owes to Cuaron's contributions in "Azkaban" (the architectural, swooping eye of the camera, the intensified pacing -- subsequently used to misbegotten effect, which I'm about to get to -- and, most talked about, the darkening of the color palette).
So, with little to distinguish each of these newer products from one another in the way of cinematic achievement, my focus shifts to how they do in terms of adapting their source texts but they've dropped the ball on this as well. Cuaron's film broke from its predecessors in how it took liberties with the books. It was shorter, more liberal, but remained intelligible and had a symmetry that was film-specific. Now compare that to this. This is also shorter but only as a mandate by the studio to appease the attention-deficit. I don't see how any movie enthusiast unfamiliar with the books could comprehend it. Inside references for Potter enthusiasts are abundant but not reasons and motivations for why half of the story's countless characters end up at the Ministry of Magic in the film's climax. There is no ebb and flow. Say what you will about Columbus but there is something good to be said for how those first pictures internalized their plots. They had coherence. Now, as we plow through Potter and friends' teen years, the filmmakers have abandoned the clarity of Rowling's writing to emphasize the edgier tones she's let into her work. I doubt it would fix the inherent flaws, but I wouldn't mind seeing an extended cut of this just to determine how much story sense was discarded to placate the impatient.
Now that he's gone out and improved on P.D. James' "The Children of Men," can't we have Cuaron back? Here's hoping for a rebound on the next sequel, but my hope isn't great. This other director's signed up again. Dance, puppet!
Blake's rating: 2 (out of 4)