Family movie with guts? Oh Oh, things look brighter...

Rating: 8/10 (23 April 2005)

I've read and heard many stories about Rowling wanting, before Columbus took charge, Gilliam as a director for a Harry Potter movie. Sure it would have been great... but didn't come true (as many dreams about the movie industry..).
But hurray, miracles happen! With Alfonso Cuaron we have here the closest possible thing to a Gilliamesque version of HP given the circumstances. And the funny thing is it's not even with Gilliam's cinematographer Roger Pratt (who was actually responsible for the second HP's wonderful visuals, contrasting with the poor storytelling and awkward direction common to the first two movies).
Michael Seresin (Alan Parker's cinematographer) was an excellent choice, and was quite up to the task. I was glad to see what he did with all these ambitious complicated "dancing" steadycam shots (very similar to Gilliam's and Jacksons') that Cuaron threw at him and the operators... The visuals are splendid.
So is the pacing, which is the very best I've seen in a long time in a "commercial" movie. This pacing is like music. So much that Williams gives what may be his best work ever, probably because the editing had already done half the job for him...
Excellent humour, too. This housekeeper at the door really got me, so did the "book of monsters", with a nod to Evil Dead III's "flying Necronomicon"... Actually nods to cult movies are everywhere if you take the time to look for them (noticed the character out of "Young Frankenstein" for example?)...
All in all a very, very enjoyable movie for almost everyone, pop-corn eaters and (non-snobbish) cinephiles alike.
Are these cynical executives actually learning, at last? The mass-consumption movie production seems to make sensible steps towards a reasonably intelligent and tasteful approach of cinema for the masses... Jackson hired for LOTR, Raimi for Spiderman, Singer for X-men, Cuaron for HP, Gilliam for Brothers Grimm... signs of the times? I certainly hope so.
It was more than time that real storytellers and real movie makers get these "big money" jobs. Now there is a -tiny- chance that the movie industry starts producing blockbusters with taste and brains.
Cuaron, my god, such a gift for pacing and liveliness, for energy and precision, bravo, bravissimo, I'll go and rent every movie from this guy. Now to be a GREAT director, he should get more involved with the inner world of the characters... Here, only Thewlis really "gets through" (sorry: Pam Ferris does too actually). The rest of the cast, well, look like.. well... actors doing their job. Could be on purpose, though. I'll have to look at Cuaron's previous works to know for sure.
8/10