SEVENTH SON

I mean god dammit, you try to go into each movie with open mind, open heart. You recall the universal scorn received by undeserving movies that obscured their virtues: the solid, old school fantasy adventure JOHN CARTER (OF MARS); the far-from-perfect but surprisingly smart and movingly revisionist THE LONE RANGER; hell, even an effervescent, fun, and sexy piece of pop cinema like DRAGONBALL: EVOLUTION. And so you go into something like Sergei Bodrov's SEVENTH SON, which disappeared quickly after a widely-lambasted theatrical run, expectations low but (previous examples in mind) hoping for at least a modest diversion.

All the elements are there: actors who've done good work elsewhere (including reuniting LEBOWSKIites Jeff Bridges and Juliette Lewis), a decent-enough story (from a YA fantasy novel by Joseph Delaney), an actual plot that expands a bit on the usual Chosen One tropes common to this kind of story, attractive effects and decently-conceived environments and creatures. But it all just seems to unfold uninvolvingly before your eyes, never taking hold of anything inside you, just existing lifelessly on screen before you. Everyone commits, but nothing catches fire. The three movies cited above, though they vary in quality, all possess something soulful that involves us, but that involvement is never felt in SEVENTH SON. Was it a language barrier (with Bodrov making his English language debut)? Was it tinkered with by unseen hands in the two years (TWO YEARS) between its completion and its release?

Even in as productized a landscape as contemporary Hollywood it is rare that a movie appears with no clear reason for its existence. Routine story elements can be viewed with fresh eyes and mined for small original tweaks (or at least invested with genuine emotion), but no one involved seems to have asked how to make this modest little fantasy something different, or special. (Indeed, it regurgitates some of the genre's more tiresome aspects, from its villainess turning to evil after being rejected by a lover to a group of villains cast with most of the movie's non-male, non-white actors.) There is no excuse for SEVENTH SON to be as lifeless as it is, and it's frustrating that the talented people assembled to make it couldn't (or wouldn't) elevate it to the level of even a modest pleasure. No one looking at the movie during its making could have thought that they had a complete movie on their hands - why should the audience feel any different?

Harry Potter 2

An irregular but ongoing series of posts continue as I watch the Harry Potter series for the first time. And so, having excitedly gotten into the series and committed to seeing it all, we (my gf and I) move without hesitation into:

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

My gf said that she very nearly gave up on the series after this movie, and I can understand why. Like a number of sequels this one seems to confuse expansion with forward momentum. It's pretty much another Harry Potter story rather than the second part of an overall narrative, and though it's nice that it's stand-alone one wonders if it's really necessary. It does broaden the world of the series, introducing new characters (a flying car, a CGI elf, and an effete new teacher played with gusto by Kenneth Branagh) and realms around Hogwarts (including a forbidden forest chock-full of giant arachnids, the grandfather of which is voiced with lovely weariness by Julian Glover).

And the story does send Harry and Ron and Hermione back through many of the same plot points as the the first, with a twist: Harry receives warning that he mustn't return to Hogwarts, the platform on track 9-3/4 rejects him, nemesis Draco Malfoy becomes Harry's counterpart on Slytherin's Quidditch team, etc. And an engaging mystery drives the thing through some well-directed setpieces. But with everything feeling carefully reset at the end there's a feeling that this whole story could have been skipped over. That the production design and music feel less intricate only adds to the overall feeling of sequelitis.

I'm pleased to read that the filmmakers also thought this movie was a bit rushed; it seems director/producer Chris Columbus extended the production time for each movie going forward after this (which must have been a relief for John Williams, whose packed schedule around this time accounts for Chamber's less ambitious score). Quite excited for the third film, which I am assured is where the series well and truly takes off.

Harry Potter 1

My girlfriend has been waiting (usually patiently) for me to catch up on the Harry Potter movie series. I'm only now starting the series from the beginning, and can't account for why I waited - I'd never had anything against the series, and actually liked the idea of a youth-oriented fantasy series that acknowledged the aging of its characters and darkened along the way. Hearing the San Francisco Symphony play an extended piece of John Williams' score a summer or two ago stoked some curiosity, but only now, after some gentle (mostly) nudging from milady, am I watching the series. I'll be sketching thoughts on each movie as I see it here.

Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone

--Had known that the first story was more youth-friendly before the series veered into darker realms but we start off with a protagonist orphaned as a baby, then living life pretty much abused by his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Even without the magical trappings HP is pretty hardcore. D tells me that a number of religious parents groups have objected to the series and I'm not surprised.

--Potter hasn't even arrived at Hogwarts and I'm wishing I'd seen these movies theatrically, in 35mm. For whatever reason I wasn't ready to commit.

--Williams' score and themes are absolutely gorgeous. His knack for instrumentation and picking just the right tone for each of his motifs is undiminished. (I'd love to see him direct a movie, just to see what would happen.)

--The visual design is just as strong as the music - together they're more than enough to carry the thing. D is a total fan of the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies, and was delighted that The Hobbit was extended into three movies. Her basic argument is that it means spending more time in Middle Earth, which I totally get. The world of Harry Potter is a fun one to inhabit, and the prospect of doing so over the course of eight two-hours-plus features is a pleasing one.

--I'm watching Harry's relationships with Ron & Hermione gel, watching the supporting cast come into play, sensing that there's more than enough character drama here to fuel the series. Something about the specific dark pitch of the fantasy here in HP1 is making me anticipate nothing less than SCORCHED FUCKING EARTH in Deathly Hallows. Alan Rickman's Snape and Tom Felton's Draco Malfoy are particularly intriguing.

--I muse more than once that this is awfully metal for an ostensibly youth-focused story. It pleases me.

--Daniel Radcliffe hadn't, by the time of The Woman In Black, escaped his reliance on facial expressions to register emotions. I didn't feel much from him in that Hammer movie, and so the performance of the young Radcliffe here isn't quite grabbing me either. I don't have the same problem with either Emma Watson or Rupert Grint as Hermione and Ron.

--For my problems with the lead, and director Chris Columbus' sometimes clunky storytelling, the world of the story and characters within it have more than secured my interest. I'm fully engaged with this thing and genuinely excited to see where it goes.

To the Chamber of Secrets!