There were plenty of things to like – the actors were all great, especially Daniel Radcliffe, Alan Rickman, the boy who played Neville and Helena Bonham-Carter. Only Helena could get away with playing Hermione Granger pretending to be Helena’s Bellatrix Lestrange. She had it down to Hermione’s girlish charm and facial expressions. Rickman as Professor Snape deserves an Oscar.
It had adventure! Its adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s book was faithful but not slavish to the point that it gets too explanatory (ergo, boring). It cut out the unnecessary, leaving us with quite moving and emotional tales of sadness, fear, betrayal, unrequited love and the love of friends.
There’s just one underwhelming thing about it: the final fight scene between Potter and Voldemort. Voldemort was not a great villain. Kevin Bacon's Sebastian Shaw in X-Men: First Class was more menacing and could beat Voldemort to a pulp. Wands do not make for breathtaking fight scenes. You poke it, it spits enough sparks to make the opponent tumble, and that’s it. I’m a big fan of action scenes, and I want lots of choreography.
I grew up on young Jet Li and drunken master Jacky Chan. Ganoon ang kick-ass! Of the more recent action movies, some of my faves include the following:
- Bride vs. Crazy 88 in Kill Bill: Vol. 1
- Jason Bourne’s use of the martial art Kali: he could kill with a book, a pen or a towel.
- Ripley battles the Queen in Aliens
- Spiderman’s fight scene with Dr. Otto Octavius on the runaway train in Spider-Man 2
- And this Ang Lee fight scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
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