8. Harry Potter 7.1 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010)
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| Nowhere is safe--not even our memories of how good Book 7 was just because it had an epic ending. |
This is the only movie I have anything really bad to say about as a whole, but it's still not a bad film.
First, what’s most obviously wrong with Deathly Hallows part 1? It drags. So. Hard. Like a 10-year-old’s feet on their way to 9 AM church on a Sunday morning.
The movie does start out exciting enough, however, with a reintroduction to all our favorite characters and a scene where half of them turn into Harry via polyjuice potion (I bet Daniel Radcliffe had fun shooting that one). Next, the movie jumps to an intense chase scene and a rare fight between our main antagonist and protagonist--and all of this is within the first 10 minutes. Two beloved characters die and a few more get bloodied up before the opening act is over.
But that’s mostly all we get from the first-parter--besides some awkward Harry-Ginny chemistry, a whole lot of camping, and a memorably cute-but-awkward Harry-Hermione dance scene.
To be fair, this movie is about as good as it should be. It feels like half a movie and a setup for more important things--because it is half a movie and a setup for more important things. Even apart from that, though, a huge downer for me was how unabashedly unfunny 7.1 is compared to the first 6 movies. Again, to be fair, the movies get much more serious later in the series--but this is coming off a Half-Blood Prince film that I consider to be the funniest film of the bunch. To their credit, I guess maybe they didn’t have time in their 146 minutes of turning half a book into a film to include a joke or two and break up the monotony?
But here I’ll give the film a little more credit: the animated introduction to the Peverell/Deathly Hallows storyline was captivating, and Dobby's death scene was strangely beautiful--although I’m still pretty mad at movie Hermione for not even trying to save his life.
Other than that, all that happened in 2+ hours besides camping and drama was that Harry got a horcrux from Umbridge, they randomly found a sword in a lake, and they used said sword to stab said horcrux. Talk about slow.
7. Harry Potter 2 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
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| Does he really have Lily's eyes, though??? |
The conclusion of Chamber of Secrets marked the end of the first short wave of the Harry Potter films. Aside from being the last movie directed by renowned child film director Chris Columbus, with the rolling credits of #2 also came the end of the brightly lit, childlike wonder of charming kid movies. After this, our kid actors start to really grow up and the movies take a much darker turn.
A lot of the good things about Chamber of Secrets it shares with its predecessor, Sorcerer’s Stone. It’s essentially a slightly darker continuation of the magical discovery of the first movie. This movie is basically a bunch of kids running around a magical castle for all of fall, winter, and spring (always with special emphasis on changing seasons) until the end of the year where they inevitably fall down into a deep dungeon in the castle--to confront another shockingly deadly threat inside the place which is, remarkably, supposed to be the safest place on earth.
Chamber of Secrets, if nothing else, does a fantastic job of following the books--and it’s the last movie that really tried to. This is great for the hardcore fans; it leaves us little to complain about. But in general, the story as it is written and especially the pacing of the book don’t translate well to movie. Essentially, Chamber of Secrets proved that, as frustrating as it may be to the fans, the script should occasionally diverge from the source material to make a more coherent and more broadly appealing movie.
And that’s where Chamber of Secrets falls a little short. Although based on the second shortest book, it’s the longest film of the franchise, packed with every detail possible from the source material. Pair that with the fact that the lead child actors still aren’t all that talented or interesting yet, and you’ve got a strong argument for #2 being one of the less fantastic HP movies. But with all that being said, Chamber of Secrets is still a lot of fun for the more die-hard fans.
6. Harry Potter 3 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
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| Apparently you’re required to scream in your Azkaban mugshot. |
The third movie is where everything changed--some for the better and some for the worse. As I’ve said before, the movies intentionally get more serious and the subject matter gets darker as they go on (more murdering and dark magic and soul-splitting). But I’ve just never been a fan of the dark tonal shift in the movies, which unmistakably happened with Prisoner of Azkaban. For me, it contradicts the luminous, playful adventure narrative I had always pictured in my mind growing up while reading the books. Plus, some of the creative liberties in Azkaban felt pretty sharp after sitting through the first two book-abiding movies (I’m looking at you, weird-ass Knight Bus scene).
Prisoner of Azkaban also saw the series’ first directorial change--and the contrast could not be more clear. Aside from the extreme lighting change, director Alfonso Cuarón decisively put cinematography and creative storytelling in the driver's seat for the third movie. The shots are so much more beautiful than we had seen so far in the first two films. Our longstanding mental picture of the Hogwarts castle exterior was unmistakably painted by Cuarón and his carefully crafted shots in the third movie.
In a lot of ways, you have to give this movie credit. It’s the most beautifully shot film of the series by far. It defined the rest of the series in terms of lighting and mood--and we finally got to see Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson start to own their characters. It tackled the problem and defined the solution for the increasingly important question that could have potentially plagued the latter half of the series: “hey, how are we going to fit everything from these increasingly lengthy and complicated books into just a few hours?” The answer was essentially: "We’re not." Instead, they started to just throw out everything that doesn't directly affect Harry while packing in as much magical worldbuilding as they could along the way.
It also would have been so easy for Alfonso Cuarón to butcher the time travelling ending. But he didn’t. Not only did he prep us for it with a well-crafted clock motif throughout the movie with several inspired/impossible through-the-clock camera movements, but he took a lengthy and complicated ending, wrapped it up beautifully, and put a satisfying, mostly-paradox-avoiding bow on it for us.
As I’ve said, from a film making perspective, this movie shines. Ratings-wise, it’s easily one of the best movies in the series. But I’ll forever have a slight personal grudge against this movie for darkening the series and for being a little bit more weird than it had any right to be. In essence: Series defining, beautiful, and important, but one of my less favorite to actually sit down and watch.
5. Harry Potter 1 - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
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| Wait...Who was the philosopher? And what did he have to do with any of this? |
Similar to Azkaban, you have to give this film a lot of credit for what it did. An outlandish portion of book-adapted movies aren’t just bad--it's not unusual for them to be god-awful.
This movie kicked off the visual Harry Potter universe that eventually exploded into a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Yes, the books were already immensely popular. But it would have been so easy for the books to wrap up, the movies to flop, and for this whole Harry Potter thing to fade into the background by the early 2000’s. Instead, we’re still talking about (and writing articles on) a fantasy book series that finished being published over a decade ago. There’s still thousands of nerds around the globe running around playing quidditch with a broom between their legs. We’re still travelling to Universal Studios in Orlando and LA just to experience the world of Harry Potter for ourselves--where they can sell cream soda with butterscotch foam for $6 a cup and people will wait in line for 7 hours to escape from a fictional bank on a roller-coaster track. Point being, Harry Potter is somehow still globally and unarguably part of the current human experience, largely as a result of the successful films.
So how did this all begin? Moving past how basic it sounds, Sorcerer’s Stone really was nothing short of magical. Something about the child actors, despite their inexperience, was endearing. The castle, the kids, the seasons, the flying, the magic, the SOUNDTRACK--every piece of visual worldbuilding this movie created is charming. They shamelessly flaunted their ability to make a great, well-paced stand-alone movie while sticking to the book enough to not disappoint fans--even with one of JK Rowling’s less inspired ideas as to what potentially deadly events would unfold at Hogwarts in a given school year.
All of these elements coming together and actually working made this film important and impressive. In hindsight, we can now take for granted that the movies are well made and entertaining. But this wasn’t quite as obvious before the movies were made and the films weren’t necessarily destined for certain success. Instead, the filmmakers earned the success with producing charming acting and cast choices, an incredible set, and competent writing.
But the even better news is that the movies, generally, continued to improve after the first film and the series became even more entertaining as time went on. Naturally, the original movie deserves a significant amount of credit for getting the franchise started and heading in the right direction.
4. Harry Potter 6 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
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| Guess who the Half-Blood Prince is. |
As a fan of the books, watching book number 6 come to life on the big screen was bittersweet. We all knew this would be our last experience with the traditional "Harry Potter and His Adventurous Mishaps in Wizarding School" plot formula, and we knew it would also bring the death of our favorite old wizard, Albus Dumbledore.
But even with these emotional expectations to rise to, the film makers certainly had some fun making Half-Blood Prince in particular. Importantly (to me, at least), Half-Blood Prince was the apex of humor and story balance in the film series. Despite the obvious darkness of the plot looming in the near future, I'd like to go on record and say Half-Blood Prince is the funniest film of the bunch, barely edging out Order of the Phoenix. Harry and Ron finally come into their own as the lovable goofballs they always were (more so Ron, of course). In 153 minutes, we get to see them play and joke around with love potions and felix felicis, get into potion class shenanigans, run quidditch tryouts, and even start to fall in love a bit. If the trio as a whole started to come into their own as actors during Azkaban, they shine and hit their stride in Half-Blood Prince--much like high school kids their senior year who have finally reached the top but haven't quite contracted full-blown senioritis yet.
In addition, we also finally get a full dose of cute/awkward Ginny & Harry dynamics ("Close your eyes while I go hide this book from you, naughty Harry...aaaaand while I kiss youuuuuuu..." -Ginny, probably). We also get front row seats to more than one awkward, jealous love triangle that almost makes this feel like a real high school drama comedy, for better or for worse. In one of the most beautiful and touching scenes of the series, we get a perfect, picturesque “sea of wands” send off for Dumbledore in what is probably the aesthetic highlight of the film--but not until after he does a bit of badass fire tornado magic to (re)kill hundreds of water zombies--oops, I mean inferi--as he saves Harry's life one last time.
It's also worth noting that although every book tends to follow the same mystery plot pattern (tease new important info, school year passes and things intensify, Harry tries to figure everything out, Harry is wrong and screws things up, some sort of deus ex machina because Harry isn't actually that good of a wizard and he needs adults/outside influence to save the day), Half-Blood Prince probably ranks as the series' most competent stand-alone mystery film. By the end, the directors pulled off a myriad of mystery plots: what’s in the Riddle/Slughorn memories? Is Draco really a death eater? Why is half the school dying in freak accidents? What does Ron see in Lavender Brown besides boobs?...the list goes on.
Overall, Half-Blood Prince ranks well against it's the other entries in the series, largely with competent storytelling and spot-on humor. Though it doesn't excel at much else, this still makes it, in my book, one of the better Potter films.
3. Harry Potter 7.2 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011)
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| ...if you can reach his face...maybe you could... hit him with a killing curse…??? |
Finally, the payoff. Of course the entire series has been building to this film. But just as importantly for the overall viewed success of the series, this movie also simply needed to be worth our time after we just sat through a two hour borefest for the first part of the dual film finale.
In short, the much anticipated emotional payoff and epic final battle in this film are so great, but as a whole, the movie is a bit of a mixed bag. At times, they give us awesome scenes like the gang escaping from feindfyre on broomsticks, made meaningful with life or death Harry/Draco interactions that help define the moral character of our protagonist. Other times, they gave us random bits of metagaming dialogue that make no sense in the context of the film that serve only to advance the plot quickly and conveniently (Ron: “Uhhh maybe Harry went to the room of requirement? Doesn’t it not show up on the map? Yeah, that’s conveniently a detail you mentioned sometime in the last film, Hermione, if I remember correctly? Let’s go! Oh, nice, he’s here! The story can go on without us having to spend precious screen time looking for him!”). What, they didn’t they have time or foresight during their 276 minutes spread over two movies to make the plot flow without poor dialogue? We really need to have Ron Weasley somehow speak parseltongue to open a door, making the excuse that he knows how because "Uhhh Harry talks in his sleep sometimes???" Especially when, "Hey, remember how we forgot to close this chamber door in movie number 2? Nice" was right in front of them.
Even the final battle gives stunning visuals in a gorgeous tour of the smoldering castle of Hogwarts, while simultaneously not making an sense as a final battle (why are they teleporting around the castle just grabbing at each other???). And all this is to say nothing of the incredible Voldemort hugging Draco scene, which I consider to be the high point both of this movie and probably the series as a whole.
Other than that, we get beautiful closure on Snape’s character, Harry dies (oops, spoiler) and gets a thought provoking afterlife scene, Hagrid fittingly carries Harry’s body to safety one more time, and Neville finally gets his moment in the sun where we finally get to see the head fly off that ghastly snake. So many good things happen; there are so many epic, beautiful, and meaningful scenes in this movie.
AND THEN TO END IT, HARRY SNAPS THE ELDER WAND IN HALF AND THROWS IT OFF A BRIDGE. LIKE THEY REALLY JUST ENDED AN 8-MOVIE SERIES ABOUT A WIZARD BY MAKING SURE HE DOESN’T HAVE A FUNCTIONAL WAND OF HIS OWN ANYMORE BECAUSE THE WRITERS FORGOT TO TAKE 2 SECONDS TO HAVE HIM REPAIR HIS OLD WAND FIRST LIKE AN IRRESPONSIBLE TWIT.
Yeah, there’s definitely a few things to dislike about this movie, and we didn’t even touch on the 19 years later scene. But when you get to the end of the series and experience this movie as the epic it is, you can’t help but mostly enjoy it throughout and even sit with a slight smile on your face as the movie ends as you start to take in what all just happened as the final credits roll.
2. Harry Potter 5 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
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| It’s almost like...Voldemort maybe...COULD have actually just walked into the Ministry and grabbed it? Since he ended up basically just doing that anyways? |
First and foremost, I won't forgive this movie for the distress it caused me over how much I hated Umbridge. Obviously that means they (actress, and also crew) did a stellar job creating a perfectly hateable villain. But what a stone-hearted, smug little bitch. It's really the smugness that gets me--it puts her on a tier of her own as far as who I consider to be the worst villains of all time. So props to the film. But at the same time, I'm still annoyed at this current moment of writing that I ever had to see her damn face or hear her disturbing voice.
Moving past that, there's so much good here in Order of the Phoenix. They finally found a good humor balance--the best in the series up to this point (and I tend to probably overvalue good humor). The Dumbledore's Army v. Filch and friends montage is one of the best and most fun scenes in the entire series, and the final (and only, actually?) Dumbledore v. Voldemort wizard duel is top notch with stunning and creative visuals. Fred and George, two of my favorite characters, reach the peak of their character arc and also get a great sendoff from Hogwarts. Anything that defies Umbridge at all in this film makes me feel more at peace with the world, which makes their mid-exam firework show a moment of excellence.
On the other hand, there were some problems--especially with the pacing. The Department of Mysteries scene, as the climax of the movie, was messy and felt rushed. And this is to say nothing of the disappointingly short Sirius Black death scene. To be fair, there's something to be said for his sudden, unforgiving, and untimely death that leaves us without a proper sendoff and without a chance to say goodbye. Such is death, quite often. But what a sad, sudden, and dissatisfying goodbye to a great character who got snubbed out of a lot of his depth and meaning in the films.
Perhaps what bugs me most about Order of the Phoenix, though, is how often mortal enemies seem to be pointing their wands at each other at point blank and are not casting spells. Sure, there's time for negotiations when your opponent holds a breakable glass ball that you need to get from him without killing him. But even when push comes to shove and the fighting breaks out, they do a whole lot of wand pointing and not very much spell casting.
All things considered, though, Order of the Phoenix does a phenomenal job of doing the one thing movies are meant to do: entertain. It’s perhaps the most fun, well-rounded movie of the bunch and it avoids a lot of the common pitfalls of the other movies (following books too closely, awkward Harry/Ginny chemistry, awkward/out of character scenes). With an excellent villain and a fan-favorite Dumbledore’s Army plot, film number 5 is up there with the best.
1. Harry Potter 4 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
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| Yes, they actually made Viktor Krum stand in the lake for this shot. |
I’m not really going to go into detail about why this is CLEARLY the best Harry Potter film or how it’s a perfect film--because I don’t consider it to necessarily be either of those things. More than anything, I think Goblet of Fire is just a little bit better than all the other films. Why? In a word, I'd say it comes down to worldbuilding.
Goblet of Fire is not infallible, which means it's in good company with all the rest of the films in the franchise. But more specifically, I'll never forgive them for skipping the damn quidditch world cup (maybe fair for sake of time, but this was so, so disappointing). The pacing can also be a bit sporadic, but I suppose that's expected when you're fitting over 700 pages of material into a two hour film. But probably my biggest gripe with the film is it's climax--the graveyard scene was too short and felt incredibly rushed.
I know they had a ton to pack into this movie, but the resurrection of the Dark Lord is the turning point in the series and should have been a bigger focus of the movie. The graveyard scene is our introduction to our fully realized series antagonist who just unexpectedly came back from the dead and is about to fracture the wizarding world into good and evil. Voldemort could have been so much more terrifying had he been given more time to monologue or the chance to really show off his magical prowess. Sure, he does some talking and does a bit of interesting magic. But really, his lone scene in the film has him prancing around the graveyard in his newly resurrected body while riddling off his lines as quickly as possible, usually with no response from anyone. His character seriously feels like he was written to try and fit as many lines as possible into his seven or so minutes of screen time. But we do have to appreciate, however and if nothing else, the majestic “I can touch you now” line as he finally gets to *touch Harry Potter* again. What a cute moment for the two newly reunited mortal enemies.
Although I strongly believe the fourth book is the best of the bunch, and I do think that the superior source material helped create a better movie, I'd still say the movie wasn't destined to be great. With so many pages and a long, complicated plot to draw from (not to mention dozens of new important characters), the writers had to navigate around so many key story elements that the story arc was inevitably a little bit jumpy; the world cup, THREE different triwizard challenges, the Yule Ball, and the resurrection of Voldemort (let alone everything in between to tie it all together and important setup for future films) are all worth extensive screen time. Add in transitions, character development, dialogue, and details and you're gonna need a densely written, efficient script. But because Goblet of Fire took on so much, it really opened the door for building the magical world of Harry Potter in ways we hadn't seen in any of the previous movies. In the fourth movie, we get backstory on other wizarding worlds and schools in other countries. We get to see fully grown dragons. We get portkeys, Priori Incantatem, dark marks, death eaters, Voldemort’s army, the goblet of fire and tournament itself, merpeople and grindylows in the black lake, an introduction to pensives, unforgivable curses, and aurors for the first time. We even get our first important character death.
The fictional world of magic really shines in Harry Potter 4; our worldview of the Potterverse expands from just kids at wizarding school in movies 1-3 to a global perspective of soon-to-be worldwide magical war. All the on-screen magic revelations we receive alongside an awesome triwizard tournament plotline is what makes Goblet of Fire the most magical film of the franchise.
Incredible world building aside, there’s also a lot of fun moments and definitely some questionable moments in the film. Chief among the latter, I’d say, is Dumbledore’s heavily scrutinized, out-of-character line: "HARRY DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIYAH?!"
Like mose, I take major issue with Dumbledore’s character being physically aggressive towards a student (his favorite one, no less), just as I take issue with the out-of-character Fred and George fighting after getting tossed out of the age ring as they grow simultaneous old man beards. But Goblet of Fire also graces us with one of my favorite scenes in the entire series: a lovely, snowy, beautifully crafted Yule Ball complete with international students awkwardly asking each other to the ball, wonderful waltzing complete with dance practices, and dazzling Christmas magic--including some of the best musical arrangements of the entire series. Simply enchanting.
Like all the other Harry Potter movies, I have some good things and some bad things to say about Goblet of Fire as a whole. It's easy to dislike the movie because it didn't live up to the potential of what's almost certainly the best book and the story can feel a little bit awkward and clunky. But pound for pound, Goblet of Fire is packed with more magic and fun than any other Harry Potter film. If you don't buy into the high opinion I have of the fourth movie, I recommend you go back and re-watch the series without preconceived ideas from the books of what the movie should be like. In the broad context of the movie series as a whole and with the hindsight of what the franchise has grown into, Goblet of Fire defines the Harry Potter universe in a way none of the other movies do.
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