Reviewing Jane: I Often Think It Odd That It Should Be So Dull

 In which we review (almost) every film adapted from or inspired by the works of Jane Austen.

Year: 2007

Director: Julian Jarrold

Cast: Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, Julie Walters 

Run Time: 2 hours

MPAA Rating: PG

If you took the opportunity to read my review for the dutiful downer Miss Austen Regrets, you may have noticed the many comments sniping at literary biopic motion pictures for generally being intolerably stupid. In truth that was largely aimed at Shakespeare in Love. I hadn't seen Becoming Jane since high school so I was willing to assume that my opinion formed at that time would hold no weight, because not only have I come a long way in my approach to analyzing the worth of cinema, I understand infinitely more about Austen and the breadth of her work than I did at the time. Astonishingly, I think I have now become the first person in human history to agree with an opinion I held in high school.

Hold onto your hats, folks.

Becoming Jane is the story of, astonishingly, a young Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway). She is one of those modern women plunked down in the past that we like to position as protagonists in historical dramas, rebelling against gender boundaries and holding fast to her belief that she can contribute more to the world as an author than as some rich man's wife. There is indeed a rich man around to test that theory, the nephew of local fancypants Lady Gresham (Maggie Smith), who she refuses despite the encouragement of her mom (Julie Walters) and dad (James Cromwell). Her heart belongs to another, the uncouth boxer and judge's nephew Tom LeFroy (James McAvoy), even though - would you believe it - she at first finds him prideful and perhaps develops a bit of a prejudice against him.

The course of true love never did run smooth, and it's famous fact that Jane Austen died without ever marrying, but just maybe this youthful romance will inspire her to write six of the most famous books about love of all time.

Starting with Pride & Prejudice, because this movie spits in the face of her publishing history.

Yes, this is one of those incredibly crass movies that posits that all an author has to do to create a literary masterwork is to write down the exact events that are happening in their lives and change the names. So even though it's based on her actual life (extremely loosely, I might have mentioned), we should approach this as an adaptation of one of her novels because it literally is, all the way down to the Lady Catherine de Bourgh of it all.

The core of a Jane Austen novel is the effortless blending of biting satirical observations of the landed gentry with earnest, effective romantic drama. Becoming Jane has neither. As an evocation of Austen's comic gift, Miss Austen Regrets is leaps and bounds ahead of Becoming Jane - and that movie saw fit to have their Jane just wander around quoting all of the best lines of dialogue she had already written. The Austen of Becoming Jane is certainly headstrong and willing to defend the use of irony in her writing, but she almost never indulges herself in it, preferring to hide in corners and cry wherever possible.

And as a romance, Becoming Jane leans entirely on our desire to see the pretty white people make out. They put almost no work into depicting why LeFroy and Austen might actually be interested in one another, they just kind of quietly transition from hate to love offscreen. And sure, they are an aesthetically pleasing couple, but in action it's a little hard to take Hathaway's barely-there British accent too seriously.

Those lips weren't made for accents, they were made for smooching!

I probably shouldn't have expected a multi-faceted study of domestic life and a lady's perspective on romance from a movie that doesn't see fit to have its female lead character speak a significant line of dialogue until about fifteen minutes in, so I guess that's what I get. 

Taken solely as a historical costume drama, Becoming Jane is wholly acceptable, with plenty of beautiful compositions of the bucolic British countryside blooming with a timeless elegance. Although if we're speaking literally, the costumes themselves aren't quite that interesting, damn those prim Regency-era frocks. The only exceptions to the rule of "plain earth tones, let's not make a fuss" are Tom LeFroy's elegant coats and Lady Gresham's voluminous outfits that are ready-made for drag performances.

I've now seen Becoming Jane twice in my life and I have absolutely no desire to ever see it a third. This coming from someone who's halfway through a volume of Jane Austen's letters to her sister Cassandra (also a character in the movie, but so minor as to not actually deserve a mention), which are mostly just descriptions of travel and who was at what balls.

TL;DR: Becoming Jane is a disappointing effort at capturing the wit and wisdom of one of history's greatest authors.

Rating: 4/10

Word Count: 846

Other Films Based on Jane Austen in General

Becoming Jane (Jarrold, 2007)

Miss Austen Regrets (Lovering, 2007)

The Jane Austen Book Club (Swicord, 2007)

Austenland (Hess, 2013)

How Could I Resist Ya?

Year: 2018

Director: Ol Parker

Cast: Lily James, Amanda Seyfried, Cher

Run Time: 1 hour 54 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

I don't wanna talk about things we've gone through, but as a reviewer it's kind of my obligation. The 2008 Mamma Mia! is a frankly disastrous film adaptation of a shallow but fun stage musical based on the songs of Swedish disco supergroup ABBA. Nevertheless I love it, for reasons almost entirely separate from the movie itself. And I couldn't help but be excited for its ten-years-later sequel, for the twin reasons that it's a movie that should never have existed (the type of thing I'm unduly fascinated by) and that I love the ABBA discography, and going deeper into it is far more rewarding than just skimming off the top of ABBA Gold like the last film did (for more of my thoughts on that, check out my first contribution to one of my favorite film sites: Alternate Ending). Also Cher. But I could have never predicted what I actually got, and I'm all the more dazzled by that. Let's jump in.

Because if there's one thing that's incredibly safe and comfortable to do in those outfits, it's jumping.

That history book on the shelf is always repeating itself, which is how we got this belated sequel in the first place, but the notes of Here We Go Again's plot are still somewhat unfamiliar for this particular glittery universe. We meet up again with Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) on the eve of the grand re-opening of her mother's hotel on the Greek island of Kalokairi. It has been a year since Donna Sheridan (Meryl Streep) has passed, of causes unknown (though the random screengrab of her white-knuckling a glass of wine that's hanging on the wall might offer some clues), and she and one of her three dads Sam (Pierce Brosnan) are still heartbroken over it.

Those happy days, they seemed so hard to find, but never fear! Our old pals are back to play, including Sophie's beau Sky (Dominic Cooper), her other two dads Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgård), and her mother's glee team Rosie (Julie Walters) and Tanya (Christine Baranski). Joining them are Andy Garcia as the hotel manager Fernando (gee, I wonder when that'll turn out to be important) and Cher as Sophie's absentee grandmother Ruby. As Sophie tries to navigate into the newest stage of her life, she finds that her story is mirroring that of her mother's way back when in 1979, as played out by Lily James alongside younger versions of Rosie (Alexa Davies) and Tanya (Jessica Keenan Wynn) as she flirts with and beds future dads Bill (Josh Dylan), Sam (Jeremy Irvine), and Harry (Hugh Skinner).

Although it's possible she didn't know they were three separate people, because they all look more or less exactly the same.

It was like shooting a sitting duck to make a Mamma Mia! movie that I'd actually enjoy, whether it was incredible, terrible, or anything in between. But the absolutely terrific thing about Here We Go Again is that it edges up against incredible, at least on the admittedly very adjusted scale that comes from being in continuity with Mamma Mia!. 

Having the time of your life is obviously the movie's biggest priority, and there are certain aspects in which the movie fails as a whole in its efforts to achieve this. For one thing, the narrative is completely inert. Sure it has more thrust and structure than the previous entry, but that's like saying you have more character drama than a Transformers movie. It's not exactly an achievement. Most of the movie, at least in the present day scenes, is just about people sitting around waiting for a party (which I could relate to, having gotten to the theater an hour early). And the flashback sequences are slavish retreads of the exact material implied by dialogue and lyrics from the original (the "walk along the Seine" line from "Our Last Summer" even gets a totally superfluous nod). And yet, the way the film connects Sophie's experience with her mother's miraculously achieves a sort of tenderness and genuine emotion of which I would have previously thought this franchise completely incapable.

But I won't feel blue like I always do, because this movie has so much more to offer than a mere story. For one thing, it has a director who actually seems to know how movies are made. The first time the camera moved in a scene, I almost jolted out of my seat, because that never happens in the original. Mamma Mia! just plunks down on a tripod and lets its cast of high wattage stars do their karaoke. In Here We Go Again, Ol Parker's camera roves around the set, snatching glamorous and sometimes even glorious images from the tumult of turquoise and glitter. It's entirely refreshing and allows the manic energy of the material to be captured in a way that actually highlights and accentuates its key components rather than sitting back from the material and letting its gaudiness shine through.

The picture clear, everything seems so easy to Parker, who crafts a musical theatre spectacle like his life depends on it. It helps that he doesn't have to rely on the A-listers who wander in and out of the present day portion like they're in one of the Netflix seasons of Arrested Development. He has the freedom to keep them around as their schedules allow, toss them a few bones here and there (thankfully, not too many are caught by Pierce Brosnan, who has not taken singing lessons in the intervening decade), and focus his best on the young, relatively unknown cast in the 1979 sequences. Because their characters are attached to the famous people, he knows audiences will still care, and his casting could focus on actual talent and not star wattage. And they sure are (mostly) talented! Some of the boys sing a little too emphatically, like they're worried they'll be fired if you miss a single syllable, but the production numbers (especially "Waterloo" and "Why Did It Have to be Me?") are lovely little trifles with grand choreography that utilize every little element of the setting and create imaginative dreamscapes that remind one of the best of classic movie musicals.

Although, as much as I love the song "When I Kissed the Teacher," what compelled them to include such a track in 2018 is still a mystery to me.

Would you laugh at me if I said I cared for Lily James' outfits more than most human beings? Costume designer Michele Clapton knows how to make the human body look cinematic, and Lily James is the perfect canvas for some of the best movie costumes of the decade, perfectly flowy and retro yet effortlessly modern and stylish at the same time. But I digress. This is a musical, let's talk about some more music! Here We Go Again resists temptation to repeat too much of the original soundtrack (of the canonical songs that appear in the actual film and not the credits, we just get "Mamma Mia," "Dancing Queen," an expanded "I Have a Dream," and a blissfully brief reprise of "S.O.S." with the rest of the songs being relegated to the instrumental score during dialogue scenes), and pulls some truly special, unexpected tracks like "Andante, Andante" and "Angel Eyes," two songs I love so much I could't help but thrill with delight.

All my sense had gone away, but I can still admit that there are certain... flaws in more than just the plot. There's still a bit of abrupt song introductions and flat singing (Brosnan and Cooper being the worst perpetrators), Seyfried is sleepwalking so hard you can practically see the drool, and Cher is a lot of things but she's not particularly convincing, as much as I love the fact that she's here at all. And it's a little hard to ignore the fact that they seem to have forgotten that Colin Firth's character is gay (the biggest mention of his character's sexuality is secreted away in an end credits stinger), and that the glitz and glamor of this musical about rich tourists ignores the economic plight of the Greek people they use as props (the film has one scene about fishermen being out of work, and it's used as an excuse to get a character a boat). I'm not saying they're bad for not mentioning it, I'm saying they shouldn't have introduced the concept in the first place if they were going for full musical theater fantasia, because it introduces a bit of a rankling cognitive dissonance.

But the destination makes it worth the while, because - especially in the second half - Here We Go Again is actually genuinely funny as well as entertaining spectacle. The script is much stronger this time around, building gags and character dynamics out of the thin air that was the original characters. Plus, Baranski and Walters (and their younger counterparts) are given some material that's actually quite dirty instead of innuendo so subtle that Christian Grey would even be scratching his head. So, let's add this all together. Terrific, non-obvious ABBA songs, actually talented cast members, solid humor, a director with a head on his shoulders, colors that pop, and a heartfelt emotional throughline? Are you sure this is a Mamma Mia! movie?

Knowing me, knowing you, it's the best they can do.

TL;DR: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is surprisingly tender and terrific.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1591
Reviews In This Series
Mamma Mia! (Lloyd, 2008)
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (Parker, 2018)

Exit, Pursued By A Bear

Year: 2018

Director: Paul King

Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, Sally Hawkins

Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

So, yes. Against all odds, I really really liked the original Paddington. But now it's four years later, the world has fallen to pieces, and the track record for movie sequels - especially to kids' movies - has never been particularly strong. There's no way Paddington 2 could provide the same level of earnest, warm quality that its predecessor had in spades. Right? Right?!

Wrong. So, so wrong.

Paddington 2 sees our beloved, marmalade-devouring bear Paddington (Ben Whishaw) having settled into his new home with the Browns, who are all more or less the same, but nudged a slight bit forward in their arcs and dealing with the problems that come with being four years older than they once were. Henry (Hugh Bonnevile) is attempting to drown his midlife crisis in yoga and ignoring the fact that his work promoted a younger, fitter employee past his rank. Mary (Sally Hawkins) is longing for adventure and training to swim across the English Channel. Judy (Madeleine Harris) has rather given up on boys and taken up journalism, and Jonathan (Samuel Joslin) is attempting to appear cool in spite of his intense love of steam trains.

Paddington's retired Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) has her 100th birthday coming up, and he has decided to buy her an antique pop-up book of London landmarks, to help her feel close to the city she always wanted to visit but never got the chance to. He takes on a series of jobs at which he fails hilariously to save up for the book so he can send it to her home in Darkest Peru.

And a Paddington movie is nothing without a sublimely arch villain, so enter Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant), a fading, self-absorbed actor - think a more foppish Gilderoy Lockhart - who steals the pop-up book, knowing that it contains clues as to the location of a hidden treasure. Paddington is wrongfully accused of the crime and sent to prison, where he must work to befriend his fellow inmates, including violent chef Knuckles (Brendan Gleeson), while the Browns attempt to suss out the identity of the real culprit.

Unfortunately, he has a tendency of just blending into the background, what with his drab outfits and so forth.

If I hadn't obliterated every doubt you had yet, Paddington 2 is a spectacular success both as a sequel continuing the look and feel of a consistent universe, and as an insular movie striking off in its own direction with separate, if thematically similar, ambitions. If anything, this movie doubles down on the original's emphasis on creating a humanizing - or rather, bear-izing - tale of immigration. The more diverse ensemble certainly helps in this regard (the original Paddington is still a masterpiece, but it's awfully white), but the way the film explores the character of Aunt Lucy this time around is a heartbreaking, bittersweet portrayal.

The moment that really drives that emotion home is also conveniently the moment that declares that Paddington 2 hasn't forgotten the visual inventiveness of its forebear.

Or fore-BEAR. Geddit?

As Paddington flips through the pop-up book, he imagines himself and Aunt Lucy running through the cut-paper world, exploring the sights of a city she'll only get to visit in her imagination. Not only is it a splendid effects showcase, blending the 3D animated bears with 2D paper animation in a lusciously gorgeous scene that completely eschews live action for a moment, it's a stirring and deeply felt sequence that will have you openly weeping ten minutes into the film.

But this isn't a movie that strives to make you sad. Oh it succeeds in spades at doing that, and your chest cavity will be sore from all the times your heart swells, but it's not cruel or punishing. It's just... life. It's a celebration of the good and the bad and the way that suffering has a tendency of giving way to radiant peace. It's certainly an anti-Brexit argument, but it's couched in such an undeniably warm, loving register that it never feels preachy or forced. It's just lovely and charming, just like every other part of this movie.

These elements peacefully coexist with everything else, from the broad slapstick that's played so earnestly you can't help but be drawn in to the little visual gags that never needed to be there, but prove just how much love went into the creation of this whole affair.

In any other kids' movie, this would easily be the worst, most pandering moment. I don't know who they sold their soul to, but it just freaking ISN'T.

Now, there is an element here where Paddington 2 is a bit of a step down from part one. The Brown family, although they get more solo scenes considering that Paddington is in prison for half the movie, are a bit less fleshed out than they once were, and they always were a little bit archetype-y. They're explored less enthusiastically, although the script is still tight enough to incorporate them all into the adventure with Swiss watch precision.

And there's no amount of sidelining that can take away from just how gosh darn good of a performance Sally Hawkins is delivering here. She is always a delight, but she takes the character she created in the first one and draws a sly, self-effacing humor from her overzealous commitment to every action she undertakes in this silly, off-kilter world she's been placed into. If she's not in the conversation for next year's Best Actress nominations (and she won't be, because the world is a cruel place and the Academy even crueler), the world will be robbed of the recognition of a true treasure.

The plotting also slips a bit with Hugh Grant's treasure hunt, which - to be fair - has way too many steps. He is supposed to find twelve clues scattered throughout the city, and although that is assuredly far too many for a simple little 100 minute film to handle, the way they skip through them feels like a gargantuan chunk has been carved out of the story. But again, this element is rescued by an actor at the top of their game. Hugh Grant is simply delightful, embracing the camp pomposity of his character with a lacerating, sarcastic portrayal of aging stardom.

It's hard not to be upstaged by the glorious pastel dandy outfits that came straight from the brain of some fevered fashion genius, but Hugh Grant pulls it off, providing the film with a villain that's just as stylistically bizarre and captivating as Nicole Kidman, but in a wholly different direction.

All in all, Paddington 2 is just the bee's knees. It's more of the same, but different, just like a sequel should be. And when that same is this tremendous and that different is so inspired, it's hard not to want to sing the praises of this movie from the rooftops of any convenient towers or skyscrapers.

TL;DR: Paddington 2 is a tremendously worthy sequel that recaptures the spirit of the original.

Rating: 9/10

Word Count: 1187
Reviews In This Series
Paddington (King, 2014)
Paddington 2 (King, 2018)

The Bear In The Big Blue Coat

Year: 2014

Director: Paul King

Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins

Run Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Back in 2014, when the original Paddington was released, it made hardly a blip on my radar. And why would it? I do have a boyfriend who takes me to a lot of kids movies, but that's because he's an animation buff, so this one didn't weigh heavily on his consciousness either. And the character of Paddington is certainly more of a UK phenomenon. Being American, I'd certainly heard of Paddington, but had no affection for him to match that of, say, Harry Potter, The Little Mermaid, or hell, even Amelia Bedelia (I would watch the crap out of an Amelia Bedelia movie, by the way).

So there are a lot of reasons I never sat down to watch Paddington, and now I know a lot of reasons why that was a terrible decision.

Not that Paddington doesn't also make his fair share of terrible decisions.

To my point, I had no idea that Paddington was an actual talking bear, and not a magical stuffed teddy bear á là Ted. I still don't honestly believe that. Someone report back to me and let me know. Anyway,  Paddington (Ben Whishaw) is a talking bear from Darkest Peru who has come to England after the death of his Uncle Pastuzo (Michael Gambon) and the retirement of his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton). These bears were taught about the English language and customs by the explorer Montgomery Clyde (Tim Downie), who promised that the bears would always be welcome in his native land.

Now, many years later, Paddington finds that London is not the glittering gem of hospitality he was promised. The city is a cold, unforgiving place (as Babe could have told him), and it's going to be harder to find a family to take him in than he thought. Fortunately, he catches the eye of artist and author Mary Brown (Sally Hawkins), who allows him to spend the night with her family; protective fuddy-duddy husband Henry (Hugh Bonneville), hormonal tween daughter Judy (Madeleine Harris), and inventive young son Jonathan (Samuel Joslin), and matronly aunt Mrs. Bird (Julie Walters). Thus begins a sweet fish out of water comedy, where Paddington's misunderstanding of English culture, penchant for clumsiness, and absurd love of marmalade get him into quite a few scrapes, but eventually allow him to wiggle his way into the hearts of everyone in town.

That is, except for Natural History Museum taxidermist Millicent (Nicole Kidman), who enlists their anti-bear neighbor Mr. Curry (Peter Capaldi) to help her capture Paddington, who she desparately wants to add to her collection.

She also seems to have acquired her hairstyle from a taxidermied meerkat.

Paddington is no ordinary children's film. Or rather, it is an ordinary children's film, just done extraordinarily well. There's not a single ingredient here that feels unfamiliar, and yet fresh life is breathed into a collection of well-worn tropes by a cast and crew that is utterly, wonderfully committed to making the movie the best possible version of itself it can be. 

The whole thing is just so earnest, in a way that only the British can be. Every character is quirky and fun in quiet, charming little ways (even two background characters - security guards who exist only to be knocked out by the villainess - have a fun little moment where they're playing a game involving guessing the amounts of certain nutrients in a little package of biscuits), and they play off the idea of a talking bear as if it's the most normal thing in the world. Everything in the universe of Paddington is just a little bit off-kilter, which helps to ground the fact that our protagonist is an anthropomorphic CGI cartoon.

And even though everything is twee and fluffy in the best possible way, Paddington - like all great children's films - has a thick vein of darkness running its way through the proceedings to take the edge off the sweetness. This is a movie that literally begins with a young bear's uncle dying in an earhquake, for one thing, but it's also at its core a Pig in the City-esque tale of an innocent trying to make his way through a cold, unforgiving metropolis. Does he teach people how to open their hearts and make their life's better through his unwavering optimism? Of course he ding-dang does! But on his way to that, he hears the tale of a Holocaust survivor and lives out an immigrant nightmare in an immediately pre-Brexit London.

Damn bears coming in here, stealing hats and marmalade from hard-working Brits.

Kidding aside, Paddington is literally a story about immigration and racism, any way you slice it. The fact that it has a brain in its head only makes it more delicious, especially because it deals with these topics on a  level any kid could understand, and as gently as possible. It encourages people to love one another in spite of their differences, and it's hard to argue with that message.

But oh, how could we have gotten so far without discussing the visual style? Paddington is a candy-colored delight, full of little details and fillips that turn the live action frame into a page ripped from a fantasy storybook. From the gloriously busy design of the pneumatic delivery tubes in a huge hall of exploration archives to the deliciously grim cutaway to an imaginary orphanage, the production design is top notch. Every surface is dripping with bold primary colors and lit with the warm glow of a long-remembered childhood dream.

Everything onscreen is perfectly precise, and yet feels homespun and inviting, like if Wes Anderson decorated a playroom. And of any movie this century, Paddington probably has the most facility with actually conveying emotion through imagery rather than dialogue. In one particularly low moment, a mural of a tree in the Browns' house has all its petals blown off, which is spectacular, but the film is full of these little moments. Everything is packed with creativity and wonder, even in little visual gags like the backs of all of Nicole Kidman's mounted, stuffed heads on the wall. I don't rightly know where director Paul King (who has mostly labored in TV comedy up to this point) got all this from, but he needs to direct every kids' movie from now on.

If this movie was a flavor of hard candy, I'd keep a dozen of them in my bag at all times.

Of course, this world would be nothing without the humans populating it, and they're all incredibly well-suited to the job. The whole Brown family is a satisfying bundle of quirks and clipped Britishisms wrapped around stock character archetypes, but the obvious standout here, other than Ben Whishaw - who maintains a sense of wide-eyed wonder without becoming grating - is by far Nicole Kidman. Her performance is incredibly sharp, all tiny little mincing movements designed to make as much impact as possible with ruthless efficiency. She's an incredibly retrained, genuinely scary presence that generates a significant amount of tension all while indulging in constant moments of laugh-out-loud absurdity.

So, there you go. Don't judge a book by its cover, I guess. Or don't judge a movie by the cover of the book it's based on. Paddington has no right to be as thoroughly delightful as it is, but when it comes down to it, it's an actual cinema masterpiece that works on every single level it's asked to work on, as well as a couple dozen more it tacks on just for fun.

TL;DR: Paddington is a downright delightful children's movie, and I'm so glad we have the capacity to make something like it in this cold modern world.

Rating: 9/10

Word Count: 1301
Reviews In This Series
Paddington (King, 2014)
Paddington 2 (King, 2018)

Do You Believe In Magic?

Year: 2002

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson

Run Time: 2 hours 41 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a very tough movie to sort out. Between being slightly better than the source novel and slightly worse than The Sorcerer’s Stone, despite being a tad better in the exact places where that film was weak, we’ve got a bit of a mess on our hands, reviewing-wise. But never fear! I’m no stranger to messes. I did successfully (and handsomely) review Grizzly II: The Concert, after all.

There comes a point in the course of a horror blog career that simple challenges like murky inferiorities cease to scare you, as long as everything in the frame is visible 99% of the time. But I digress.

Handsomely.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in case you have just come back from the dead and missed the period between 1997 and 2011, tells the story of Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), a polite twelve-year-old boy with the charming quirk of being a wizard with magical powers. Even though a mysterious house elf named Dobby (Toby Jones) arrives with a warning not to go back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he doesn’t listen because Hogwarts is the only place he feels like he belongs.

However, Dobby’s warning comes true when vicious attacks leave various students Petrified in the name of the Heir of Salazar Slytherin (a Hogwarts founder and owner of the most obviously wicked name ever written). Rumors abound that the mythical Chamber of Secrets has been opened by Harry, setting Slytherin’s monster loose on the grounds. Harry and his friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), however, suspect the culprit to be their rival Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton).

This relatively simple plot zips by with all the vigor of a speeding turtle, making you feel every last minute of its hideously distended 2.7 hours.

You could die while watching this movie, reincarnate, grow up, and learn to speak English again, all in time for the finale.

For once, let’s begin with the good, shall we? I mean, if you ignore that previous statement. Which you may well have done, because we all know you only skim these things. 

Chamber of Secrets improves upon its predecessor in this all-important way: It doesn’t let the book get the better of its narrative. This film takes much more license with the source material, streamlining, embellishing, and sometimes even improving it. Several key action sequences are expanded and rendered quite a bit more exciting, whether it be the off-road course of Harry’s fateful Quidditch match, an extended adventure through the titular Chamber, Harry and Ron’s cross-country trip in a flying Ford Anglia, or even Dobby smashing a pudding at the Dursleys’ house. I know, right?

It is hampered somewhat by the unenviable task of interpreting the single weakest ending of the series and its small army of deus ex machina, but compare to Stone, it is a stunning achievement in self-contained storytelling.

The other area where Chamber of Secrets is undeniably superior is its aesthetic, which finds in Chris Columbus a surer hand than he managed to provide before. Several shots even manage to evoke a theme, if you can beieeve that. The opening shot is a stunning evocation of the dull sameness of the Muggle world, and one moment finds Kenneth Branagh’s egotistical Professor Lockhart posing with a painting of himself posing with a painting of himself in a hilarious nesting doll of self-congratulation.

The production design is likewise deftly improved, with additions to the castle rendering it more tactile and earthy. It’s far more believable that humans might inhabit this location, no matter how magical they may be. And the new locations (especially the Weasley family home – The Burrow) are depicted with utmost care and grace.

Loose observation: Nobody at Hogwarts seems to care if students’ lives are endangered, as long as it’s in the scheduled curriculum.

Ah, but here’s where we slip inevitably into mediocrity. The child performances all slip down a peg save for Emma Watson – who alone of the young cast is a marked improvement – and Bonnie Wright (as Ginny Weasley), who imbues her role with a kind of stony determination that would come to define the character. But as for the boys, they're all over the place.

As their voices drop, their performances slip. Maybe they just noticed girls and found themselves far too distracted for anything as subtle as a major motion picture. At any rate, Radcliffe finds himself very taken with Stooge-like overreactions and Felton spits out his dialogue like sunflower seeds, spraying the whole place with fleshy shrapnel. Rupert Grint settles into a strong position when he is called upon to be the comic relief, but otherwise happily whiles away the hours by placing untoward emphasis on random, inappropriate vowels.

By far the best child performance of the entire film is Shirley Henderson who, as a matter of fact, isn’t a child at all, but a fully grown woman who must have access to a lifetime supply of Maybelline. Her performance as Moaning Myrtle is gloopily self-indulgent and fun, swinging over the top and right back around again. The rest of the adults once again fill out an astonishingly solid supporting cast, with new additions Kenneth Branagh (all inflated bravado and squirrely Britishisms) and Jason Isaacs (a picture of well-heeled malice as Lucius Malfoy) proving a perfect match for Harry Potter’s cheerfully epic universe.

Also, he's uncomfortably handsome.

And now, alas, for the truly, admirably bad. The film, insofar as it exists as its own distinct narrative entity, does drop a few conspicuous balls along the way. It completely neglects to set up several important plot points (most notably Lockhart’s self-aggrandizing book collection) and, in one peculiar instance, has two entire characters appear out of the blue as if they’d been there the whole time.

Likewsie, the special effects, while mostly satisfactory, have several uncomfortable rough patches. For every improved Quidditch green screen or fairly seamless flying car moment, there are the hideous Lego monstrosities masquerading as pixies or a set of hideously amateurish paintings that replace the magical moving ones when they think we’re not looking. And while nothing approaches the film-tearing inadequacy of the cabin in the sea scene from Stone, there is one prominently visible moment where the actors are dawdling at the edge of the frame, clearly waiting for their cue.

Toss in a horrific tone that’s waiting desperately in the wings but never called into action and a couple scenes so stiff they have toe tags, and you can’t help but feels the glamor and appeal begin to deflate dejectedly. It’s not a terrible film. In many instances, it is a totally fine, effective one. But it’s a film that goes on for song long that the negatives stretch on into infinity outweighing nearly all the positives at one point or another.

It’s always watchable, but for long stretches it is deathly dull, a descriptor that belongs nowhere near the hallowed grounds of Hogwarts. For better or for worse, I’m ready to move on to Cuarón.

TL;DR: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is both a slight improvement and a slight decline from its predecessor.
Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 1222
Reviews In This Series
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Columbus, 2001)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Columbus, 2002)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Cuarón, 2004)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Newell, 2005)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Yates, 2007)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Yates, 2009)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Yates, 2010)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Yates, 2011)

Looking For The Magic

Year: 2001

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson

Run Time: 2 hours 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

As both a self-respecting movie blogger and a human born in the mid-90's, there has been a glaringly egregious gap in my review history: the largest cultural phenomenon of the millennium, the Harry Potter franchise. Now, I hadn't rewatched any of these films or reread any of the books since the release of the final entry in the franchise in 2011, so it is from a relatively fresh, newly adult perspective that I approach these films, making this marathon - I hope - all the more interesting.

I will always carry a deep and abiding love for Harry Potter in my heart. How could I not? His presence has defined my entire living memory. But I'm going to attempt to come at these films on their own terms, separate from my inner child's feelings on the matter. And let me tell you, nothing prepares you for the cold, hard truth behind beloved childhood films like a double dose of Chris Columbus.

It's really not fair to subject children to this kind of torment.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in case you are a baby who has not yet learned to read, is about one Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), an eleven-year-old boy in the care of his despicable aunt and uncle, who discovers that he is a wizard and is summarily carted off to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy. There he learns that he is the only known person to have survived an attack by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort (played for the time being and without distinction by Richard Bremmer), who killed his parents when he was a baby.

During his first year at Hogwarts, Harry befriends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), a boy from a low income wizarding family, and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), a somewhat bossy girl who excels at schoolwork. In between their lessons, they discover that Hogwarts is currently the hiding place of the philosopher's sorcerer's stone, a legendary MacGuffin that creates the Elixir of Life and which Voldemort desperately wants. They suspect that their wicked potions professor Snape (Alan Rickman) is plotting to nick the stone from the school, right under the nose of the wise and powerful headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris).

Also, why did publishers think that American brains would melt upon seeing the word "philosopher"? That's not an unheard of term over here. It's not like pretentious undergraduates are tramping around signing up for sorcery majors. We get it, guys. And actually, Nicolas Flamel was an alchemist, so screw all y'all.

The Sorcerer's Stone is different from the book. That is fine. I don't mind my cinema being different from literature. They're two different mediums for a reason. I'm just telling you all this so when I complain, it won't feel like useless nerd rage.

While the film cuts large swaths away from the book's plot left and right, it ironically completely fails to trim the fat. The end result is a story that zooms from beat to beat with a machine gun clatter, often dawdling pointlessly for twelve seconds at a time on unjustifiable plot points like the birth of Norbert the dragon (whereupon he is immediately shipped offscreen and hardly mentioned again), a transfiguration lesson (which is merely an excuse to repeat an effect we've already seen before), and the introduction of the Hogwarts ghosts (perhaps the most shameless and irritating fan pandering, because they instantly vanish from the film and they have the gall to not even include Peeves).

In their blind fury to slam every possible moment from the book into the audience's eyes, Columbus and screenwriter Steve Kloves forget that they're supposedly making a self-contained narrative film. Imagine, if you will, that a movie is an intricate wedding cake, holding itself elegantly in delicious harmony. The Sorcerer's Stone is more like a pile of jagged fondant shrapnel with a dozen mismatched figurines jammed in at odd angles.

Metaphors are hard. Segues are harder.

There is some really wonderful stuff in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I'll close with that, so I leave you all with the feeling that maybe I'm not a grouchy old codger. For the time being, let's continue complaining.

There is a moment, and it is very early in the film, where the technical side of things goes completely off the deep end. It does not stay here for long, but the effect lingers for a great deal of time as it wades back to more navigable waters. I speak of the "cabin in the sea" scene, in which, for no apparent reason, the 180 degree rule as well as all laws of continuity editing and location geography are shot in the head and dumped into shallow graves. The camera goes haywire, jumping back and forth like a deranged chipmunk and never adequately displaying the scene to any degree.

Aside from that brief patch of gibbering insanity, the film is otherwise technically sound (including some early 2000's CGI that comes off a bit blocky, but is hardly distracting and it's still better than Jupiter Ascending), though it does tend to feel a little stuffy and stagebound, lacking the expansive open-world feel of the later sequels.

Masterpiece Potter, if you will.

Here's where my mood begins to improve. The performances, largely culled from the highest grade talent available across Britain, are remarkably superb for a children's film. Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith are the perfect choices for their respective characters, taking the film seriously and bestowing their roles with a profound sense of gravity. Richard Harris with his wheezy otherworldliness, Robbie Coltrane with his rugged good cheer, and Warwick Davis with his being Warwick Davis all round out the adult cast quite nicely.

The only liability in the acting is the children, which is naturally to be expected. Radcliffe does a fine job, though he utterly fails to convince when he is supposed to be feeling pain in his scar. Intimate understanding of pain like that doesn't happen until puberty. And Rupert Grint has some natural comedic talent, though he doesn't get so many opportunities to show it off this time around. Emma Watson is the weakest link thus far, but her overly-recited lines don't contradict her character so it's not distracting in any way.

All in all, things could be a lot worse on the kids' end and it's almost impossible to be better on the adults' end (*cough cough Michael Gambon cough*).

Yay! I was mostly nice for two whole paragraphs!

Alright, now that that's out of our systems, it's time for the effusive fan praise. First off, John Williams' score and especially the iconic "Hedwig's Theme" is just superb, capturing the magic and wonder of this new world with a soaring heart. It's not so overdone as some of his more recent scores, utilizing a minimalist melody and orchestration to capture an unforgettable whimsical tone. Its use in the film isn't always perfect, and it's overplayed at some points making some minor scenes self-consciously epic-sounding (Harry's going to the broom cupboard, not to war), but the score itself is an undeniable masterwork.

The other unimpeachable aspect of the film is its production design. The layout of Hogwarts castle has not yet reached its zenith, but the interiors are uniformly cluttered, lived-in, and supernaturally in tune with the mystery and majesty of the wizarding world. 

It is not Harry Potter in its best form, but it lays a solid groundwork for the truly wonderful things to follow. Really, it's a fine film to begin a franchise with. But only (and here's the clinches), only if you've already read the book. You need that handicap in order to decipher the incomprehensible mass of plot that the film vomits up in its middle half. But other than that, hey, good job.

TL;DR: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a decent enough beginning to the franchise, but leaves the door wide open for future improvement.

Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 1346
Reviews In This Series
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Columbus, 2001)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Columbus, 2002)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Cuarón, 2004)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Newell, 2005)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Yates, 2007)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Yates, 2009)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Yates, 2010)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Yates, 2011)