At a home for retired opera singers, the annual concert to celebrate Verdi's birthday is disrupted by the arrival of Jean, an eternal diva and the former wife of one of the residents. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Dustin Hoffman
Starring: Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Billy Connolly and others
Cecily, Reggie and Wilfred are in a home for retired opera singers. Every year, on October 10, there is a concert to celebrate Verdi's birthday and they take part. Jean, who used to be married to Reggie, arrives at the home and disrupts their equilibrium. She still acts like a diva, but she refuses to sing. Still, the show must go on... and it does. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Dustin Hoffman
Starring: Billy Connolly, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon and others
(Review originally written at 6 June 2008) *** This review may contain spoilers ***
No, I'm not a big Harry Potter fan and probably never will be but I can appreciate the qualities of the movies. Definitely for a children movie this movie is of course of very high class, with fabulous looking sets, a whole load of well known British actors and an highly experienced crew involved. The movie forms a nice first set up for the future series of Harry Potter movies. Still I'm glad the movies and its characters have matured a lot since this movie. Probably also has to do with the fact that this movie and the second were directed by Chris Columbus who is an experienced children movie director, while the other Harry Potter movies were directed by more 'serious' directors. Yes, it makes this movie a good children's movie to watch but also sort of makes this movie look and feel more outdated than any of the other Harry Potter movies, which also goes at the expense of its re-watchable value. Nevertheless, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" remains good quality- and fun film. It knows to create an entire new world of its own with lots of often strange characters in it. The movie is of course a set up and the first establishment of a long running series of movies. This means that the movie consists for a big part out of character introductions. Yes, this results in the fact that there are a bit too many characters in the movie, also since some of them don't even seem to serve a purpose at all for the story but this got resolved in the later movies, by simply leaving out some characters but by introducing many new ones as well. So its sort of problem solving with another problem. Also a bit of a shame that the movie is lacking a real central villain. Professor Snape is treated as a villain, even though we learn by the end of the movie that he's not such a bad guy after all. The real main villain if the movie is of course Voldemort but he gets mostly only mentioned by name and basically doesn't do an awful lot in the movie and only sort of shows up in the very end of the movie. Not the way to treat a villain in my opinion, even though its of course clear from this movie on that he is going to play a much bigger and more important role in the future Harry Potter movies. I however in a case like this feel that they should had putted in a new and different villain besides Voldemort, since this movie is definitely lacking a sense of danger, excitement and action, even though the movie never bores, despite its quite long running time (for a children's movie anyway.). The movie its quality is also surely being uplifted by its presence of well known and respected actors, such as Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane and Alan Rickman among many others. Each of them are giving fine performances but it are mostly Harris and Rickman that catch the eye with their performances. The child actors are also managing fine, although its definitely and luckily true that their acting improved throughout during the later movies. The movie is great looking and knows to create a magic new world, with its set, costumes and make-up. It's not hard to see that this was a costly movie to make. The special effects are also mostly fine, though not really during the game of quidditch, or any other 'flying' sequence for that matter. The movie gets also greatly supported by the musical score from John Williams. Sort of a waste for the series that Williams only scored the music for the first 3 movies. A good and fun enough start of the series, though luckily the movies improved more over the years. 7/10 Watch trailer
Lots of people at the time praised "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" for its dark approach and atmosphere. Well, if "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was a dark movie, than this is an ultra-dark movie. "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" was a semi-dark children/fantasy movie that never really dared to cross the line. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is not afraid to this though. I must say that this movie is actually closer to horror than fantasy in my opinion. It had an incredible atmosphere, with also some classic build up horror moments. There is little room left for fun in this movie and it's all very serious. Yes, perhaps a bit too serious though. I felt that the movie could had used some relieving humor at times, something all of the other Harry Potter movies were still loaded with.
No, I'm not a great Harry Potter fan and never will be probably, but I have to give it credit for some thing. The series perfectly adapt to the maturing of the main characters as well as the viewers/readers. In other children book series the readers/viewers of course mature over the years, but the stories don't mature with them and everything remains just the same as the first book/movie. I praise the Harry Potter series for not doing so.
So the movie is quite different from any of the previous other Harry Potter movies. It has a new style, which provides the movie with a different atmosphere. This is being empathized all the more by the different musical score from the still unknown Nicholas Hooper. I liked this idea. A new approach calls for a new style, also in the music. None of the themes sound familiar or reminds us of any of the other previous Harry Potter movies.
The movie is more political than fun. The whole taking over Hogwarts thing by the ministry was done quite nicely and interesting. Harry and friends need to face some serious grown up difficulties now. Voldermort is back, no doubt, which means that there now needs to be fought in a battle between life and death. So no giant spiders, house elves, games of quidditch, brewing potions behind closed doors or snakes this time, but a real murderous evil villain, with dangerous followers, that needs to be stopped.
I'm sort of fed up though with all of these new characters that constantly get introduced in every new Harry Potter movie. It's of course not that any of those characters are bad, or being portrayed by horrible actors, but it just goes at the expensive of already some fine and established actors, such as Minerva, Dumbledore, Snape and Hagrid, who are now all being pushed more to the background. The movie is now filled with literally dozens of characters, that are not all getting the attention they need and deserve.
This is a very recommendable movie, especially if you thought that all of the Harry Potter movies were still too childish.
(Review originally written at 9 March 2007) This is a pretty odd movie that mixes drama with adventurous elements and yet somehow works. The movie is definitely entertaining to watch, with a good cast, some fine comedy moments and a good solid adventurous story. Nothing too big or fancy, just a decent enjoyable movie quality movie to kill some time with. The movie has a perfectly adventurous way of storytelling, meaning that lots of places around the world are being visited in short amount of time and many different characters come and go. The movie obviously had some great production values, since the movie is set all around the globe, from Paris to Istanbul and everything around it and between. The movie is also looking with some lively, deliberately over-the-top looking sets and costumes (both nominated for an Oscar with the costumes even eventually winning.). But what else was to expect from a George Cukor movie. The man who is known for director cheerful and good musical mostly in the '50's and '60's including "My Fair Lady" but also comedies, like "Born Yesterday" and well known serious drama classics as well, such as "Gaslight", "The Philadelphia Story" and for some part, before he was booted from the set, also "Gone with the Wind". He mixed all those previous styles he had worked with before in this movie. The end result is a quite unique and one of a kind movie, that works fine on the adventurous level, as well as the comical and dramatic one. The movie is well cast with Maggie Smith in an absolutely splendid role. A role that even got her an Oscar nomination. She also had some great chemistry with Alec McCowen, who is obviously the least known actor of the main cast. His role even got him a Golden Globe nomination. Abolutely great and humorously entertaining was Louis Gossett Jr. in his role. He not only shows that he is a great actor but also how well he can handle the comedy genre. His character provides the movie with the most and biggest laughs. Too bad that his career has derailed so badly the last couple of decades, ever since his Oscar winning role for "An Officer and a Gentleman", from 1982. But no, when you look at this movie you'll realize that it also is far from a perfect one. The story gets a bit too odd at times and the storytelling is just off. The movie also too quickly ends some potentially interesting or amusing plot lines and the different adventurous/comedy and drama elements don't always go together well. Nevertheless it was a movie I mostly enjoyed watching and I wouldn't mind viewing it again. A good entertaining movie, that definitely deserves to be seen. 7/10 Watch trailer
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