Time: 110 Minutes Cast:
Reed Birney as Richard
Ann Dowd as Linda
Jason Isaacs as Jay Perry
Martha Plimpton as Gail Perry Director: Fran Kranz
Two couples meet for a painful and raw conversation in the aftermath of a violent tragedy.
I went into Mass fairly blind, I knew Jason Isaacs was in this and I heard a few people call it one of the most overlooked and best films of 2021. I checked it out, and I definitely agree that more people should be watching it.
First of all, the screenplay is fantastic. The entire movie takes place at a church, it focuses on the meeting between the parents of a victim and the parents of a perpetrator from a school shooting, in which they share a lengthy discussion. That’s all you should know about the premise going into the film. It mostly takes place in this one location and it makes you feel locked and closed in this one room, just like these four characters. The film perfectly balances the four characters and each of their feelings and motivations as it tells its layered story between four parents grieving over a tragic event. The movie has a great amount of emotional weight, showing how each person suffers in their own ways. It is very much exposition heavy with great amounts of dialogue, it’s basically like a play. Mass is dialogue driven but doesn’t become tiresome and thankfully it’s all written very well and feels authentic and real. As you can tell from the premise, the film is tackling a very serious, sad and widespread issue and as such it is an uncomfortable watch (as it should be). While it could’ve easily handled the topic wrong, it dissects it perfectly. It avoids the usual cultural conversations surrounding such tragedies and avoids mentions of political issues, it doesn’t lay blame or give a clear or easy answer as to why these things happened. The focus instead is more on coming to terms with the event, and it encourages understanding and listening. It deals with trauma, grief, blame, loss, regret and more, with a great amount of empathy for those who survived and those who didn’t. It just felt so accurate and raw, and there are many scenes which hit hard. The plot is certainly slowly revealing, purposefully so, it doesn’t rush right into the tense conversations at the centre of the movie. I found this approach to be highly effective. In terms of issues, I will say that the last 20 minutes do seem a little drawn out but it ends very well in its final scenes.
The acting really comes down to its 4 central performances with Jason Issacs, Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd and Reed Birney. They deliver awards worthy performances and get to shine equally. They almost makes you forget that you’re watching a fictional piece of media. Each of them feel very authentic and represent their characters well.
This is Fran Kranz’s debut film, and it is a good first movie. On a technical level it isn’t necessarily special, it isn’t aiming for visual flourish. However it is still very effective in its simplicity. For example the camerawork is quite straightforward and simple when the discussions start out calm and casual; but when the meeting gets more heated the camerawork changes to handheld and really captures the tight environment the central characters are in. There’s also some very effective use of blocking and framing of the four actors, and it conveys the tension very well.
Mass is one of the biggest surprises of the year, and is one of the year’s best. It’s definitely a downer to watch given the subject and the simplicity and slow moving nature may turn people off. However if you know what you’re getting into, I think it is well worth checking out, from its fantastic writing to the outstanding performances.
Time: 130 Minutes Age Rating: Supernatural themes & violence. Cast:
Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter
Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley
Emma Watson as Hermione Granger
Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange
Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid
Warwick Davis as Filius Flitwick
Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy
Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort
Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore
John Hurt as Mr. Ollivander
Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy
Kelly Macdonald as Helena Ravenclaw
Gary Oldman as Sirius Black
Alan Rickman as Severus Snape
Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall
David Thewlis as Remus Lupin
Julie Walters as Molly Weasley Director: David Yates
A clash between good and evil awaits as young Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) prepare for a final battle against Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). Harry has grown into a steely lad on a mission to rid the world of evil. The friends must search for the Horcruxes that keep the dastardly wizard immortal. Harry and Voldemort meet at Hogwarts Castle for an epic showdown where the forces of darkness may finally meet their match.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 had to deliver a satisfying conclusion to the Harry Potter series. With it being the 8th film in the series and with a huge fanbase behind it (both from the book and the movie), there was a lot of hype behind it, thankfully it really delivered. Deathly Hallows Part 2 is a fantastic and emotionally satisfying ending to the series.
Deathly Hallows Part 2 had a somewhat easy task, outside of the Gringotts Bank scene, most of the movie is one big final battle. But it still had the task of bringing everything together to deliver a fantastic conclusion, and I think it was effective in how they did that. It took just about all of the main plot points and characters and concluded them in a conclusive and satisfying way. As all Harry Potter films are like, things are different from the books. Some things like the final fight between Harry and Voldemort, I didn’t mind even though I know it was criticised from being different from the book. The book didn’t have much of a fight and was mostly a long conversation, so this version works better for a movie (though I agree that it would’ve been nice if there was more dialogue between the two). However the way it ends for Voldemort was a little underwhelming and cliché, and there should’ve been more of a transition between that scene and the next scene. There are some changes that I don’t think were great, like what happened with the Elder Wand at the end of the film. However there wasn’t really anything too much that ruined the experience. Deathly Hallows Part 2 is the shortest of the Harry Potter movies at 2 hours and 10 minutes long and it was the right length. It is long enough but it also gets to the point and main points of the story.
All the cast did a great job and served their purpose well. Harry, Ron and Hermione (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson) are all great again, and all get to do major things in the movie. Like in Part 1, a lot of the supporting characters are pushed to the back and there’s so many of them but they all do great. Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall, Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy, David Thewlis as Remus Lupin and more all do fantastic in their roles here. We also get to see the full character of Alan Rickman’s Severus Snape. He’s not in a ton of scenes but he is fantastic in them and deliver on some of the best scenes of the movie. Ralph Fiennes is once again great as Voldemort, still throwing himself into a rather pure evil role, but playing it so convincingly and with so much menace that it kind of works. He’s a little over the top at some points, particularly in one scene in the third act before the final confrontation, but I can’t see Voldemort being portrayed any better than how Fiennes did it.
The direction by David Yates is once again great. Deathly Hallows Part 2 has the most action in the series, we see a lot of wizard battles and destruction and it’s all handled really well. The visual effects are outstanding and still 7 years later look pretty good. The action scenes are entertaining and you can feel the weight behind everything that happens. Alexandre Desplat did a great score for Deathly Hallows Part 1 and I’m glad to see him do the score for Deathly Hallows Part 2 as well, elevating so much of the movie over what it already is.
Deathly Hallows Part 2 delivers on what it is supposed to. It’s entertaining, emotionally satisfying and brings the series to a close in the best way possible. It’s biggest flaws are the ending of one of the scenes in the third act and some of the differences between the book and the movie, and the latter is an issue with every single movie in the series, which only speaks to how fantastic of a movie it is.
Time: 96 Minutes Age Rating: contains violence. Cast:
Laurence Fishburne as Captain Miller
Sam Neill as Dr. William ‘Billy’ Weir
Kathleen Quinlan as Peters
Joely Richardson as Lieutenant Starck
Richard T. Jones as Cooper
Jason Isaacs as D.J.
Sean Pertwee as Smith ‘Smitty’
Jack Noseworthy as Ensign Justin Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
When the Event Horizon, a spacecraft that vanished years earlier, suddenly reappears, a team is dispatched to investigate the ship. Accompanied by the Event Horizon’s creator, William Weir (Sam Neill), the crew of the Lewis and Clark, led by Capt. Miller (Laurence Fishburne), begins to explore the seemingly abandoned vessel. However, it soon becomes evident that something sinister resides in its corridors, and that the horrors that befell the Event Horizon’s previous journey are still present.
Event Horizon was a movie that I had been hearing about for a while, particularly for how it inspired the Dead Space video game series. It’s been referred to as Hellraiser in space and it’s also known as director Paul W.S. Anderson’s best movie. Also a lot of the idea of a haunted house in space with like a portal to hell sounds like something interesting, so I was somewhat looking forward to getting around to watch it. While it doesn’t live up to its potential, I think it does work decently enough as a horror flick, and does have some genuinely good stuff to it as well. However, production problems and heavy cuts by the studio really held back the movie from being as good as it could’ve been.
There is a ton of production story explaining what happened with Event Horizon but I’ll try to limit it to the relevant things I’m talking about. Event Horizon has a lot of interesting ideas, the idea of hell being involved is chief among the best, and it wasn’t originally in the script. Phillip Eisner’s original script had alien beings as the cause of the hauntings of the ship but Anderson felt it was too much like Alien, so had a revision of the script done (by Andrew Kevin Walker uncredited) so that it was like a classic haunting movie (like The Haunting and The Shining, there’s even one scene that’s paying homage to the latter), more like a classic haunting movie instead of a monster movie, while also incorporating elements of hell in the movie. I’m thankful that this happened because it’s one of the most stand out parts of the movie. As I said, some of the ideas are pretty good, other aspects can take a little too much from other movies. There’s also some occasionally goofy dialogue and writing that doesn’t ruin the movie but definitely takes you out of it. Now I don’t know if this is the cause of it, but when Paul W.S. Anderson signed on to direct, development had to move quickly cos there was already a release date scheduled (meaning that pre production was likely rushed), so a lot of the script and other elements wasn’t worked on or revised as much as they should’ve been before filming. One thing that really needs to be mentioned is the length, Event Horizon is an hour and 30 minutes long, really quite short. It’s ironic considering that apparently the cut was way too long (even Anderson said that it was too long) and yet it ended up being the shortest length that a typical movie would be. As it is, the movie is fine enough with its length but all the cuts really meant that the story and characters wasn’t really fully realised. Maybe cutting some of the extreme gore (which I’ll get into later) might’ve been understandable and wouldn’t have affected the plot much, but a lot of the plotlines and character development was also cut. 30 minutes were cut from the movie, and I don’t believe that almost all of that was full of extreme gore. There are also attempts at building tension, but the film is cut a lot to speed up the pacing and featuring cheap jumpscares or gore and that can deflate a lot of the tension, no doubt a victim of the tight filming schedule. The ending seems to have 2 endings, and it’s like they couldn’t figure out which one to use so they just used both of them and so it’s just confusing.
The cast is limited but talented, with Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan, Joely Richardson, Richard T. Jones. Jason Isaacs, Sean Pertwee and Jack Noseworthy as the crew. They all do rather well, with Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne being the standouts. However, a lot of the aforementioned cuts to the movie really affected their characters and performances because a lot of their scenes (including scenes featuring their development and depth) were cut. Something that the Event Horizon (the haunted ship) does is that preys on the crew members’ fears, but we only get to see that with a few of the characters and it just feels like a wasted opportunity. Seeing all of the characters’ fears and having them up against them really would’ve been something great. Even the Event Horizon fear stuff aside, we don’t get to learn about these characters well enough, sometimes making some characters feel out of place and not memorable at all. The biggest example is Richard T. Jones whose character’s development and a lot of his depth was no doubt cut from the movie, and so he just comes across as really goofy and super comedic, like he should be in Jason X (aka Jason Vorhees goes to space) or something. His comedic relief does work fine enough but that’s all there is to his character. Even the characters that work better have been likely affected by the cuts, Sam Neill’s character really isn’t consistent, and even knowing the full plot its difficult to really pin down his whole deal.
This is definitely Paul W.S. Anderson’s best movie and while some of the directional aspects doesn’t quite work, most of it works well. So much of the CGI is dated, particularly when it came to objects floating around in space like in the opening scene, I’m sure that the CGI back in 1997 was more impressive than what was on display here. With that, when it comes to the practical effects and sets, the movie is much better in those areas. So much of the design is very Alien and H.R. Giger inspired, maybe a little too much. Still, the practical sets are great and you really feel like you are in this haunted ship. This movie can also be extremely brutal and graphic but its mostly in brief moments, notably two. Both of these scenes actually went on for a very long time originally and were way more graphic and violent. If you look up what happened, when the movie was shown at test screenings, audiences didn’t take too kindly to the massive amount of gore (to put it mildly) so there were numerous cuts to earn an R rating so it could actually be shown in cinemas and avoid the dreaded NC-17 rating. The makeup and animatronics are also very impressive, Anderson got a lot right with Event Horizon. There are times where you can definitely tell that some things were rushed, particularly the editing. Anderson apparently was only able to do one draft edit for the movie and you can kind of tell that this is the case. For example, Event Horizon at times uses some really stock sound effects, which at times actually deflates a lot of the tension that they were going for. By that I mean that an example is a fight near the end had some goofy 80s action punching sound effects, making it feel really cheesy instead of intense.
Much of Event Horizon’s faults isn’t actually because of Paul W.S. Anderson or his crew but really mostly because of Paramount Pictures, it suffers by some occasionally messy writing and most of all from the numerous edits and cuts made by the studio. It does however have some really good elements, the production design and practical effects are great, the acting is solid, and this haunted ship from hell idea is really something I dig. It was a really good decision on Paul W.S. Anderson’s part to skip directing Mortal Kombat Annihilation for this. I feel like this would be one of those few movies that would be nice to see a remake of, if not at least another movie with a similar idea explored, because we haven’t seen many other sci-fi horror movies go to that place. As for Event Horizon itself, if you like horror movies and you can stomach some occasionally extreme gore, give it a watch, it’s only 90 minutes long anyway. Even if you don’t end up watching it, I highly recommend looking into the production of this movie because it’s rather interesting.
Time: 138 Minutes Age Rating: Violence and fantasy horror. Cast:
Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter
Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley
Emma Watson as Hermione Granger
Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange
Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid
Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort
Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore
Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody
Richard Griffiths as Vernon Dursley
Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy
Gary Oldman as Sirius Black
Alan Rickman as Severus Snape
Fiona Shaw as Petunia Dursley
Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall
Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge
David Thewlis as Remus Lupin
Emma Thompson as Sybill Trelawney
Julie Walters as Molly Weasley Director: David Yates
Now in his fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) learns that many in the wizarding community do not know the truth of his encounter with Lord Voldemort. Cornelius Fudge, minister of Magic, appoints his toady, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, for he fears that professor Dumbledore will take his job. But her teaching is deficient and her methods, cruel, so Harry prepares a group of students to defend the school against a rising tide of evil.
After Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the next film in the series would have yet another different director, that being David Yates, who would of course go on to direct all the future Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies. Order of the Phoenix does suffer by having a lot of cuts to the story and not having enough of the story from the book, but the movie is nonetheless very solid and rather underrated (at least to me). It’s has some truly great moments, and it does successfully pull off adapting the longest book into one of the shortest movies.
Tonally, this film does feel brighter than the past two movies but it does signify that some things are in the process of changing in the world. Now I hadn’t read Order in the Phoenix for a long time but it’s well known that it’s the longest book in the series, and so there’s no doubt a ton of things that were cut, and you can really feel it watching the movie. It does have one of the problems that Goblet of Fire has, that being that some story points, character depth and development is seemingly not in the movie, and it would’ve really improved this film. There are also some parts which are only shown briefly which it would’ve been nice to go into a little more. The biggest example is that Harry training Dumbledore’s Army is like shown in 2 montages, they are effective in the movie and get the point across, but nonetheless it would’ve been nice to explore it a little more. With that said, the movie does have some effective scenes, an example being the scenes between Harry and Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), which are among the best scenes of the film. Compared to most of the Harry Potter movies, it’s not as long, so another 10 minutes (or maybe a little more) might’ve added to the story a bit. Order of the Phoenix would’ve always had this problem as a movie though, with it being the longest story in the book series, really the only way to encapsulate the stories from the books is to make it a tv series, so credit to the directors is due for trying their best. Thankfully though, unlike Goblet of Fire, the movie doesn’t extend or add a bunch of pointless things to the movie (or at the very least I didn’t notice it). The opening moments of Order of the Phoenix is a little clunky, with it being quite possibly having the worst opening scenes of the movies. The Dursleys are more the top than usual, the dementors had a jarring downgrade in design, it introduces characters that don’t get any development whatsoever, and is just really rushed. After the first 15-20 minutes, things improve from there though. The movie is just under 2 hours and 20 minutes long, making it the second shortest of the Harry Potter movies and while I did wish it was a little longer so that we could’ve gotten more of the plot and characters, it never felt overlong and the pace was always consistent (even if it did at times rush through some things).
Acting is quite good all around. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) are great and all get to do stuff in the movie. Daniel Radcliffe as Harry is particularly great, delivering his strongest performance in the series up to this point, Harry goes through some character development so Radcliffe gets a lot to do here. The returning cast are great as well. Gary Oldman is once again fantastic as Sirius Black, he and Radcliffe share some great scenes together. Though some characters like Mad Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson) are a little underutilised, they are still good in their roles. Michael Gambon with Order of the Phoenix starts to really fully settle into the role of Dumbledore, still different from Richard Harris’s but works nonetheless. Ralph Fiennes as usual is great as Voldemort, he’s not in the movie a lot (mostly just in the third act) but he’s a constant screen presence from start to finish, even when he’s not on screen. There are some good additions to the movie, I liked the casting choices, but some got to do more than others. Out of all the scene stealers in this movie, the most prominent one is Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge, the character was even more hated than Voldemort and Staunton absolutely kills this role, bringing this loathed character to the big screen. She’s essentially the main villain for most of the movie, she is such a big screen presence and invokes such a response from audiences. Pretty much everything about her character in this movie they nailed. Also a new great addition was Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, who throws herself completely into her insane role. You mostly just see her in the third act, but she makes a great impression.
Director David Yates takes over as the next Harry Potter director, and he was a good pick. So much so that he was given pretty much the rest of the Harry Potter movies and the entirety of the Fantastic Beasts series to direct. The movie does have a good look to it, the production design, the visuals and the whole look of the world is really good. You do get to see quite a lot more magic in this story and it was done really well. This is the first Harry Potter movie where we really get to see Wizard Duels in all of their glory, and it was shown very well. The third act particularly has a ton of magic and battles (Dumbledore vs Voldemort was especially a highlight) and it’s really great to see. One minor thing that stands out is the look of the Dementors early in the movie, who look like skeletons with a bit of cloth and aren’t as effective as the Dementors in Prisoner of Azkaban and look rather goofy instead. Granted they are on screen for less than a minute. The score by Nicholas Hooper is also pretty good.
Order of the Phoenix starts off quite clunky but it really does improve over time and is overall a solid Harry Potter movie. It’s biggest issue is that it is missing some things from the book that would’ve improved the plot had they been included them. With that said, it’s also got a lot of great things, with wizard duels, not feeling overlong and having some really great scenes. I also feel like with Order of the Phoenix, the series got the right setup, tone and portrayal of the world right, which is probably why Warner Bros decided to stick with David Yates to direct all the Harry Potter/Wizarding World movies.
Time: 157 Minutes Age Rating: Medium fantasy violence. Cast:
Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter
Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley
Emma Watson as Hermione Granger
Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid
Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort
Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore
Brendan Gleeson as Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody
Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy
Gary Oldman as Sirius Black
Alan Rickman as Severus Snape
Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall
Timothy Spall as Peter Pettigrew Director: Mike Newell
The fourth movie in the Harry Potter franchise sees Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) returning for his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, along with his friends, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson). There is an upcoming tournament between the three major schools of magic, with one participant selected from each school by the Goblet of Fire. When Harry’s name is drawn, even though he is not eligible and is a fourth player, he must compete in the dangerous contest.
After Prisoner of Azkaban, the Harry Potter series would continue with Goblet of Fire, this time directed by Mike Newell. I think this movie is generally liked but I’m not sure what the general consensus by the general audience is on it. To me, Goblet of Fire is very solid and has some truly great moments but it also has some moments which don’t work that well, like some of the cheesiness, the at times slower pace and longer length. Overall though, the pros more than outweigh the cons.
Goblet of Fire adopts a significantly darker tone and it was appropriate for the story, the film really does nail its darker moments. The humour a lot of the time works but at other times it’s a little too silly and cheesy for my taste. Something that was very evident to me at least was that the movie is quite over the top at times, with how certain things are portrayed, the way the actors play their roles, everything was over the top. At times it works, at other times it doesn’t work as well and comes across as a little too silly. While it’s been a while since I’ve read the book, I feel like there’s a bunch of things missing from the movie. It feels like the movie has added in unnecessary things and removed some necessary story points. It’s not a problem if you are familiar with the books but if you aren’t, there are some things that are unresolved or unexplained that I think would really stand out to you. The rest of the movies do a good enough job familiarising the audience with new ideas and things relating to the world, but Goblet of Fire does have some problems with this. Also, some of the side characters that were featured a little more in the book don’t get as much screentime in the movie. This movie is long again, at about 2 hours and 40 minutes long and you really do feel the length. Despite it being as long as Chamber of Secrets, that film had significantly better pacing. While Goblet of Fire has some exciting and captivating moments, and can really drag at times, especially the yule ball segment (the preparation of the ball and also the ball itself in particular). The Yule Ball segment does make the story and everything come to a huge halt, especially among Harry having to complete all these trials. While I guess it does a good job at showing teenagers acting like teenagers and what it’s like, there are times where it does linger on it too much. The third act is pretty much perfect in my eyes and is really effective and impactful… well it’s almost perfect, the ending concludes the story way too quickly and on such a jarringly light note, especially considering the dark things that were happening 10 minutes beforehand.
Most of the cast do well but something that I noticed was that a lot of the acting can be over the top. As I said previously also, some of the side characters that were featured a little more in the book don’t get as much screentime and so some actors aren’t utilised to quite their fullest potential. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson are once again good in their roles. You can definitely tell that these characters (and the other characters their age) are maturing more than in the previous movies. These characters are acting more angsty and more like teenagers and while they did a good job at it, they succeeded a little too well. And I know the justification about teenagers acting like teenagers can be used for Ron Weasley in this movie but he really comes across as unlikable and annoying in this movie, particularly when he and Harry stop being friends for a period of time. Granted this was in the book but it doesn’t make him any less annoying. Robert Pattinson (yes, pre-Twilight) is also quite good as Cedric Diggory. Some of the over the top performances work for the roles and the movie. Brendan Gleeson’s Mad Eye Moody (as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts Teacher) is over the top and scene stealing (and there’s a reasonable enough explanation at the end of the movie for how crazy he acts). Miranda Richardson as Rita Skeeter isn’t in a ton of scenes but she is solid in the role and suitably over the top. David Tennant is also really over the top but it works well enough for the role. Some other over the top performances however are a little too much and are just distracting, like Roger Lloyd Pack as Barty Crouch Sr. However the most criticised performance was Michael Gambon’s Albus Dumbledore. There are many times when he’s quite loud and over the top here. Particularly the infamous moment when he goes beserk and delivers the line “Harry did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?” when in the book he is meant to be doing it ‘calmly’. It’s not just his really loud moments however, a lot of his line deliveries and the way he acted didn’t fit Dumbledore at all. Thankfully his performance as Dumbledore improved significantly after this movie, and he does have some okay moments during Goblet of Fire. A lot of the returning cast members like Alan Rickman as Severus Snape and Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy are great once again. Ralph Fiennes plays Voldemort and he does a great job in his small screentime in the third act. It is a larger than life and is an over the top villain performance, but like Fiennes once said, there’s no way else you could play this role. He put everything into this performance and played it excellently.
Director Mike Newell as expected of in the other movies with different directors, he added his own style and direction to the next Harry Potter movie. The visual effects improved a little over the last movie and the magic looks quite different from the previous movies, with very distinct colours (like red and green) being used. Some sequences are fantastic, such as the challenges which involves Harry on a broomstick being chased by a dragon, Harry swimming underwater and Harry in a magical maze. Also the third act with the confrontation with Voldemort, all of that was directed well. This is the first Harry Potter to not have their score done by John Williams, this time it’s done by Patrick Doyle, who does a pretty good job, it fitted for a Harry Potter movie, especially for this story and the tone they were going for. I know it’s a weird thing to focus on, but it’s really jarring when all the main characters suddenly have long hair, particularly Harry and Ron. Not really a problem, just sort of distracting. That’s the least of the movie’s problems anyway.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has some really good things and some very apparent flaws all at once. The darker tone was done very effectively and there are some truly great segments (particularly the challenges segments and the third act). At the same time the movie feels overlong and drawn out, with the pacing not being particularly good. Also, some of the over the top scenes work but some of the other over the top aspects end up backfiring significantly. Still I think Goblet of Fire is a solid movie, just not one of the better movies in the series.
Time: 161 Minutes Age Rating: Frightening fantasy scenes and violence. Cast:
Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter
Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley
Emma Watson as Hermione Granger
Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart
John Cleese as Nearly Headless Nick
Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid
Richard Griffiths as Vernon Dursley
Richard Harris as Albus Dumbledore
Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy
Alan Rickman as Severus Snape
Fiona Shaw as Petunia Dursley
Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall
Julie Walters as Molly Weasley Director: Chris Columbus
It’s Year 2 at Hogwarts, and Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) are back learning, but their year doesn’t go past quietly. Members of the school are turning up petrified and bloody writing are appearing on the walls, revealing to everyone, that someone has opened the chamber of secrets. The attacks continue, bringing the possibility of the closure of Hogwarts. Harry and his friends are now forced to secretly uncover the truth about the chamber before the school closes or any lives are taken.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was a huge hit for audiences, for both Harry Potter readers and those who weren’t. The next year, Chris Columbus would release the next film in the series, Chamber of Secrets, which is also pretty good, a film which I would consider to be slightly better than the Philosopher’s Stone, despite it feeling a little too long and drawn out at many points in the film.
In my last Harry Potter review, I mentioned how surprised I was at the length of the Philosopher’s Stone, at 2 hours and a half long. I’m even more shocked at the runtime for Chamber of Secrets, at 2 hours and 40 minutes long. I will say though, you can definitely feel the running time this time, some scenes can drag and some scenes can be rushed, and it definitely feels like a long movie this time round. Chamber of Secrets is not complicated but it’s not as simple as Philosopher’s Stone, with much more going on at the same time, and as nice as it was to see a lot of these scenes in the movie, maybe some of them should’ve been cut. The third act however was paced and handled suitably well for the most part. A good thing about this movie is that you can tell that Chamber of Secrets was done by the same director but there is a suitably darker tone that is necessary for the story. This is about a giant creature that petrifies (and sometimes) kills children after all. This also means a lot less of the camp and cheesiness that was present in the first movie (however the ending of the movie can be very cheesy). The movie also sets up and establishes things (unknowingly to audience members) that would come into play for future movies, and that’s something that the Harry Potter series does very well. There are some bits which, as a Harry Potter fan, slightly irked me, and I don’t usually have issues with differences to the books. For example, the disarming spell Expelliarmus is used as a stunning spell, while they aren’t anything really major, that can be very distracting.
The acting from the child actors is still not great but it has noticeably improved over the child acting in Philosopher’s Stone (and also despite the fact it’s just been a year, they all look much older). Also, the chemistry and friend dynamic between the 3 main leads (Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley and Emma Watson as Hermione Granger) is a lot better and more convincing. One issue I might bring up though is not an uncommon criticism, Ron is kind of a whiner and useless a lot of the time, particularly in this movie, Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire. I know that some characters when adapted have to be simplified, but surely Ron could’ve come across as a little better than how he did here. Other returning actors, especially Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid and Richard Harris as Albus Dumbledore). We also have some new additions to the series. Kenneth Branagh was a perfect casting choice for Gilderoy Lockhart, he is really cartoonish, useless, over the top and annoying but it’s pretty much a perfect representation of the character (fun fact, Hugh Grant nearly played the role and he would’ve been great as well). Another great new casting choice was Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy’s (Tom Felton) father. He plays the role with such menace and is pretty memorable despite only being in a few scenes in Chamber of Secrets (that voice is pretty great and suits his character well. Also good was another new character Dobby, voiced by Toby Jones, perfect casting.
As I said before, you can tell that Chris Columbus directed Chamber of Secrets but it also has a darker tone to it, and this also extends to the direction. While there are lots of moments with brightness, the colour pallet also uses a lot of darker colours, the entire third act is dark and dark green. The production design is really great once again, the attention to detail was fantastic, especially the Chamber of Secrets. The visual effects are slightly better, it does have some weaker spots but there are a lot of things that still look pretty solid today. John William’s score is once again excellent, and his new additions to the Harry Potter soundtrack really pay off (the Fawkes theme being a standout).
I don’t know what the general reception that Chamber of Secrets has but I think I like it slightly more than Philosopher’s Stone (probably because of the darker story and tone). With that said, it does have some issues, with it feeling overlong and dragging at times. One of the weaker movies in the series but it’s still rather solid.
Time: 146 Minutes Age Rating: Violence, sexual violence, offensive language & content that may disturb. Cast
Dane DeHaan as Lockhart
Jason Isaacs as Dr. Heinreich Volmer
Mia Goth as Hannah Director: Gore Verbinski
An ambitious young executive (Dane Dehaan) is sent to retrieve his company’s CEO from an idyllic but mysterious “wellness center” at a remote location in the Swiss Alps. He soon suspects that the spa’s miraculous treatments are not what they seem. When he begins to unravel its terrifying secrets, his sanity is tested, as he finds himself diagnosed with the same curious illness that keeps all the guests here longing for the cure. From Gore Verbinski, the visionary director of THE RING, comes the new psychological thriller, A CURE FOR WELLNESS.
A Cure for Wellness was very polarising upon its release, some hated it, others loved it. It definitely had a lot of potential, I liked the actors involved with Dane Dehaan and Jason Isaacs, I really like Gore Verbanski as a director and the trailer and premise of the movie was very intriguing. So I was definitely interested in how the film would be despite the mixed reaction. Having finally seen it, I personally think that it’s one of the best films of the year.
A Cure for Wellness is a long movie, it’s nearly 2 hours and 30 minutes long but it kept my interest from the beginning to the end. Yes, the pacing is quite slow at times, perhaps unnecessarily at times, but I was nonetheless engaged despite this. This movie is not completely different from anything we’ve seen before, watching it you can recognise some similarities to other movies (such as Shutter Island). What is different is the way the film tells its story, the structure is a little different, all the details of the movie are important to understanding everything, some of these aspects are ambigious and you actually have to really think about to full grasp what’s going on. I know this because that’s what happened with me, there were parts of the movie that I only understood hours after watching the movie, when certain things clicked for me I could more fully grasp what was going on. However generally the movie is straightforward, with maybe the exception with the ending (specifically the last shot of the movie) which is a little ambiguous. However, with many of the details being ambiguous and with all the twists and turns throughout the film, I can see A Cure For Wellness getting better upon repeat viewings. In terms of flaws, there aren’t many to be honest. There was a possible continuity error and the first act is non-linear for no reason really, it didn’t bother me or hinder the film but it did feel unnecessary. However that’s it to be honest.
The acting all around is great. Dane Dehaan is really good in the lead role. There is an aspect to the film where its questioning whether Dehaan’s character is just imagining and hallucinating a lot of what’s happening and Dane pulls it off well. Mia Goth is quite good as a unique patient at the wellness centre, her performance really worked for the movie. This is the first performance I’ve seen from her and I can tell that she’s very talented, she definitely deserves some more work. The best performance of the film however is from Jason Isaacs, who is in the role of the director of the wellness centre, a very sinister character, definitely leaves an impression on you.
The direction by Gore Verbenski is perfect. The cinematography was excellent, everything from the framing, to the camera movement, the lighting and colour was perfect. It’s a beautiful looking movie overall. This movie is full of disturbing imagery, things that make you genuinely uneasy and uncomfortable, and I don’t usually feel like this during movies so that says a lot. The production design is excellent, the location chosen for the majority of the film is a castle and it gives the film a very unique enbironment. This movie also does well at making you feel uneasy, you can tell that something is off, but a lot of the time you can’t pin it down what it is. The sound design was very effective and it all worked to feel very real and unnerving, the creaking sounds of Dane Dehaan’s crutches as he moves from place to place (he is on crutches for the majority of the film) was an example of this. The music by Benjamin Wallfisch ranges from being haunting and eerie to loud and intense, definitely very effective and memorable. I’m confident in saying that A Cure for Wellness is really one of the best directed movies of 2017 so far.
A Cure of Wellness gets everything right, the acting is great, the story is very intriguing and its different structure and storytelling method makes this a unique and fascinating movie. However, it is Gore Verbenski’s direction that ties everything together and makes everything work so well and makes this movie even better than it already is. As shown by the reactions, it seems that A Cure for Wellness is not for everyone. It is a weird movie, along with the dark tone and grim and grotesque imagery, it is a very different movie in terms of its structure, this structure could potentially turn some people off. If you are curious enough however I recommend checking it. I personally think that it’s safe to say that A Cure for Wellness is going to be one of those films which receives a mixed response upon its release but gains a cult following and is later appreciated as an excellent film.
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The Cinema Critic 