Nov. 16, 2002 - 7:13 pm
much more complicated but almost exactly as good as the first, is the new Harry Potter. my only complaint is that Alan Rickman is a little bit less prominent in this film. he was hilarious in the first film. overall though, this movie is much funnier than the first one. more comic relief stuff is thrown in like Ron's owl which always crashes into stuff, the mandrake plants which are basically horrible shrieking little babies that have the ability to kill you, and Ron's backfiring broken wand. love the comedy.
so as i said, this movie has a much more complicated entanglement of characters. you start to think Hagrid might be up to something devilish throughout the movie, and i still kind of feel that way even after it was over. i really don't understand what he was up to in this film. i also don't completely understand what Valdemort's influence was over this one character that we're introduced to. i guess he once again actually "was" this character, but i'm still a bit confused. so i guess another complaint about this is that there are some loose ends. everything else is awesome.
great new additions to this movie are the new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher, played by Kenneth Branagh. i laughed just about every time he was in a scene. that's a hilarious character. and all of the new magical creatures in this film are extraordinarily well-conceived. Dobby is wonderfully created in CGI and has a lot of innovative motion involved with him. and then they even had at least two prominent creatures that were more animatronic, which i love. and the phoenix rocked my world. the phoenix is awesome.
this is a great advancement on the first film, with very few flaws that i think will seem more forgivable with time.