A Taste of Magic
Movie Review: Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Perhaps I saw this movie too soon after reading the book. The book was just fantastic (see the earlier post about the book) but as with the rest of this series each book keeps getting longer and longer. The movies stay about the same length though, so more and more keeps getting cut out. This is understandable but many things I was looking forward to seeing from the book just weren't here. The entire house-elf subplot was dropped. This was a justifiable cut but it would have been nice to see Dobie again. Important information about Neville was only subtlely shown. The ending of the movie was also much weaker than the book which put the entire story on a war footing. What was here was good but I was a little disappointed. 7/10
Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (2005)
I really had high hopes for this movie going into it. As a youngster I loved the entire Narnia series and I thought it would have a little bit of that 'Lord of the Rings' feel to it. It didn't have any of that feel to it, although it sure tried to. I'm positive that they purposely copied some of the scenes from LOTR exactly. Perhaps this was in homage to LOTR but it just seemed like a cheesy rip off to me. I haven't read the series in a long time so I've forgotten many of the story's small details. This means I can't blame some of the plot holes on the movie because they might be in the original book. What didn't I like about this movie? Well, for starters, I thought the CG looked bad. They looked very fake. Even worse than they sometimes did in Star Wars. Probably my biggest problem with this movie is the sense of scale. Narnia is supposed to be this whole new world, but I never got the sense that it was very big. We see all these exotic creatures but I never got the feeling that Narnia was big enough to contain them all. In LOTR Middle-Earth felt big, while Narnia feels as if it could fit inside that wardrobe. 6/10
Movie Review: Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Tim Burton's latest. Next to Corpse Bride that is. First off I'll admit that I haven't read the book or seen the original Gene Wilder movie. I did read all the reviews that said Johnny Depp's version of Willy Wonka is a parody of Michael Jackson. I disagree. Michael Jackson is no where near as funny as Depp's Wonka. This was a very fun movie with great characters and sets. The music and dancing were very fun but sometimes jolting as they brought the story to a standstill. This was obviously intentional though and the musical numbers were very memorable. For me the most disturbing part of the movie was the character of the Oompa Loompas who were all played by Deep Roy. He's a strange looking man and it was wierd to see all the digital copies of him. According to IMDB he received a 1 million dollar salary for all the work he did on the film. Good for him. 7/10
Perhaps I saw this movie too soon after reading the book. The book was just fantastic (see the earlier post about the book) but as with the rest of this series each book keeps getting longer and longer. The movies stay about the same length though, so more and more keeps getting cut out. This is understandable but many things I was looking forward to seeing from the book just weren't here. The entire house-elf subplot was dropped. This was a justifiable cut but it would have been nice to see Dobie again. Important information about Neville was only subtlely shown. The ending of the movie was also much weaker than the book which put the entire story on a war footing. What was here was good but I was a little disappointed. 7/10Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (2005)
I really had high hopes for this movie going into it. As a youngster I loved the entire Narnia series and I thought it would have a little bit of that 'Lord of the Rings' feel to it. It didn't have any of that feel to it, although it sure tried to. I'm positive that they purposely copied some of the scenes from LOTR exactly. Perhaps this was in homage to LOTR but it just seemed like a cheesy rip off to me. I haven't read the series in a long time so I've forgotten many of the story's small details. This means I can't blame some of the plot holes on the movie because they might be in the original book. What didn't I like about this movie? Well, for starters, I thought the CG looked bad. They looked very fake. Even worse than they sometimes did in Star Wars. Probably my biggest problem with this movie is the sense of scale. Narnia is supposed to be this whole new world, but I never got the sense that it was very big. We see all these exotic creatures but I never got the feeling that Narnia was big enough to contain them all. In LOTR Middle-Earth felt big, while Narnia feels as if it could fit inside that wardrobe. 6/10Movie Review: Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Tim Burton's latest. Next to Corpse Bride that is. First off I'll admit that I haven't read the book or seen the original Gene Wilder movie. I did read all the reviews that said Johnny Depp's version of Willy Wonka is a parody of Michael Jackson. I disagree. Michael Jackson is no where near as funny as Depp's Wonka. This was a very fun movie with great characters and sets. The music and dancing were very fun but sometimes jolting as they brought the story to a standstill. This was obviously intentional though and the musical numbers were very memorable. For me the most disturbing part of the movie was the character of the Oompa Loompas who were all played by Deep Roy. He's a strange looking man and it was wierd to see all the digital copies of him. According to IMDB he received a 1 million dollar salary for all the work he did on the film. Good for him. 7/10
posted by Jason at 9:52 PM
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