Dark Days for Harry Potter

Written by Alejandro A. Riera

Tuesday, 14 July 2009 13:25

Welcome back, Steve Kloves. You were sorely missed. You very rarely get the credit you deserve for bringing the Harry Potter novels to life on the big screen. Yes, you were waaaay too literal on the first two films. But you began to spread your wings with “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” With director Alfonso Cuaron as your best ally, you let Harry Potter fans know that, when it comes to adapting J.K. Rowling’s series (or for that matter any work of literature), you don’t need to do the “Greatest Hits of Harry Potter.” All you need to do is be faithful to the spirit of the books. Acknowledge that film is a different beast and that it can never compete with that big screen in our minds called imagination.

I understood the need for you to take a break with “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” in order to prepare for the one-two punch of Books 6 and 7 in the series. For while scriptwriter Michael Goldenberg did a splendid job in streamlining that monster of a book (the most cumbersome of the entire series), into a manageable 139 minutes of screen time, something was missing. After seeing “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” I finally realized what it was. Kloves has been living with these characters since Day One. They are as much a part of his creative DNA as they are of Rowling’s. He knows personally what makes them tick.

To read entire movie review goto www.cafemagazine.com/index.php/component/content/article/209/209

Source: CafeMagazine.com

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