Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Four movie marathon

I finally had a chance to watch all of the Harry Potter movies recently. When they first came out, I was not all that interested since it was a "children's" story. I did see the Sorcerer's Stone and that only reinforced the idea that the plots would not be intricate enough for my taste. However, based on my sister's recommendation, I gave the books a try. She told me they get better and better, so I stuck with them until I was drawn in around the third book. To my delight, the the stories did evolve as the characters got older. Anyway, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is still the weakest of the movies and also the weakest of the books. I rate it a 6 because it did a very good job visually and does set up the characters well. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets rates an 8 because of the execellent mystery and character development. This is where I really began to love Dumbledore. So of course, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is somewhat diminished because of the new headmaster. This one only rates a 7, as I don't think it did a very good job with the time turner and other story intracacies. Finally, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire gets an 8 with more lovely visuals and better handling of story details. Overall, I think my sister explained it best -- the movies are not really all that good in and of themselves. They are just execellent ways to apply visuals to what we read and remind ourselves of the story elements that we loved in the books.