I've got a bad left knee currently awaiting repair.
I never saw the Harry Potter film franchise.
Well, those two little factoids have recently collided. Stuck on a couch for several days, I decided to get through as many of these movies as I could. Previously, I had seen the first installment when it was first released. I didn't like it. I also had read J.K. Rowling's first book. I didn't like that either.
Yet, I had resolved to tackle them once and for all. Knee swelling and the need to ice with compression will do crazy things to one's mind.
So, I can announce now that, after a four day swing where I never left the couch, I have seen the first four Harry Potter movies. I'm not sure but I think I have another two dozen to go. They did finally stop making them, right?
These films usually were produced and released at one or two-year intervals, which effectively dragged out the franchise through two Presidential administrations. But, I watched the first four with less than 24-hours between each. When you watch them in that matter, the plotholes and inconsistencies are so evident that you don't need to be a wizard to see them.
Still, in some bizarre way, I enjoyed them. Sure, they're all about 45 minutes too long. Most of these stories could have been told in a crisp 90 minutes, but, then again, that would have sent about 500 special effects technicians to the London unemployment line. And, of course, I've always been a bit befuddled by all the made-up words and expressions invented by Rowling---all of which made the scripts look like they needed to go through one more round of Spellcheck.
There's some school for wizards called Hogwurst or something like that and it always made me think of the head cheese my grandfather used to eat for lunch. In the first two movies, this is a real sleepaway school. By the fourth movie, Hogwurst morphs into some deadly haunted house worthy of a Six Flags theme park thrill ride. The kids go to this school every semester and somehow skirt death on a regular basis. It made me wonder what their parents were thinking when they asked their children what happened at school this year.
"Well, I almost got electrocuted and then I got swallowed into a cave by a killer tree."
Mom, Dad, would you pay tuition for that???
Harry Potter is apparently mourning his dead parents because they pop up as bubbles over his head continuously. Instead of learning how to use a magic wand or a flying broomstick, he might have opted for some grief counseling. Meanwhile, he gets to school every year by boarding a train through a concrete wall. Hmm, doesn't everybody?
On his first day at Hogwurst, Harry meets his school chums. Hermonica and Ronny Weasel, who looks like Ronny Howard with a bad case of eczema. Together, they will battle the demons presented to them by school. If they think they have it bad with all the treachery there, they should have gone with me to Mount Vernon High School, where you took your life into your hands by simply trying to pee in the bathroom.
You meet all the teachers. The guy who runs the place is Professor Dumbo Doors. Richard Harris played him in the first two movies and then was replaced after he died. The sad thing is that the character is so caked with make-up and a beard I didn't notice Harris was gone. Maggie Smith is some headmistress who occasionally appears as a cat. The always creepy Alan Rickman is Professor Snipe, Snake, or Snot. I think the name changes each picture or perhaps the pronounciation does. Then Harry has some giant who acts as his bodyguard. His name, I think, is Hybrid, whihc might mean he's part electric. Harry's life is always in danger, so you get a rough idea of how good this bodyguard is. Whitney Houston's security did a better job and look where she wound up.
We learn somewhere between the third and fourth picture that somebody named Lord All The More killed his parents so there will be some kind of Charles Bronson vendetta unfolding for us. That character is played by Ralph Fiennes in some bizarre make-up that has him resemble Curly of the Three Stooges with a bad case of diarrhea. I assume the final battle between these two will occur in the last chapter. I trust it will be as ugly as some of the debates between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.
In practically every film, there is an athletic contest where the kids ride around on flying broomsticks and chase some golf ball with wings. Why didn't Titleist seize this opportunity for nifty product placement? The rules of this sport make no sense, but Harry always wins so it really doesn't matter.
Over the course of the four movies I saw, the acting of the youngsters improved measurably. Daniel Radcliffe grows admirably into his role as Harry and does command the screen eventually, even if he does lose his glasses in some fight at least twice in every picture. And why didn't Lenscrafters seize this opportunity for nifty product placement?
After I watched the very first film with the title I can't remember, I liked it more than I did when I saw it twenty or so years ago when it first came out. The second movie with another title I can't remember was terrible and essentially a rip-off of the first plot. If J.K. Rowling was really that uncreative with her follow-up novel, she should be jailed for grand theft larceny.
I do remember the name of the third movie. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Lorazapam and I'll still waiting to see how the drug plays into the plot. The director changed for this installment and this is where the plot creepiness started to sift in. All of a sudden, this is wizardry as presented by Wes Craven. Things got back to normal with the fourth film. The kids start acting like teenagers and go to school dances. All of a sudden, it's Shelley Fabares and Paul Petersen from "The Donna Reed Show." Harry starts to sprout some hormones and I'm hoping the title of the fifth movie is "Harry Potter and the Leaky Condom."
I'm resting now. Both my knee and my mind. I will space out the remainder of the Potter series over the next few months. Too much of a senseless thing can leave you, well, a bit senseless.
Dinner last night: Bobboli pizza with pepperoni.
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