Thursday, July 12, 2007

Stack-ranking the "Harry Potter" films

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I haven't yet seen Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but we've got our tickets to see it in IMAX 3D on Monday. So to keep me occupied in the meantime, I thought I'd rank the four previous Harry Potter movies from best to worst (although "worst" in the case of HP movies really is a relative term...). So if you'll keep in mind that I love all of these movies, here we go:
  1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: At first viewing I was disappointed with this movie, mostly because it left out a lot of meaningful moments from the book and wasn't as faithful to its literary source as the first two movies in the series. However, upon repeat viewings, this movie has really grown on me. The visuals are moody and memorable, the acting is first-rate (Hermione has never been less-annoying), and the tone is the perfect balance of whimsy and malice. And this movie gets extra points for John Williams' perfect score, which has a prime spot in my Ipod rotation.
  2. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: The first movie in the series had the uneviable task of welcoming the world to a cinematic Hogwarts and its associated magic. Happily, it pulled it off very well. Upon repeat viewings, the film is unnecessarily slow and overly loyal to its source, but it is also perfectly sentimental and appropriately innocent for an 11-year old Harry and his young audience. And could the casting have been more inspired?
  3. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: This is definitely the most exciting of the first four movies, and remains a very entertaining and fast-paced adaptation of a 700-page novel. This movie's strengths include a streamlined and focused screenplay and some terrific performances (such as Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody). A couple of nit-picky complaints: I sorely missed John Williams score, and Michael Gambon's Dumbledore gets a little more feisty and cranky than I ever pictured him in the book. Altogether a very fun movie, and how great was that creepy graveyard scene?
  4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: This movie already had two things going against it: the associated book was my least favorite (too similar in structure to the first), and director Chris Columbus did little stylistically to distinguish this movie from the series' first film (though I complained about it at first, the producers' decision to shift directors from film to film--starting with #3--really helped breathe life into each film). Having said that, Chamber of Secrets does boast some very funny Ron-centric moments, introduces us to cute little Ginny Weasley, and gives us one last chance to enjoy the perfectly patriarchal Richard Harris as Dumbledore.
So there's my batting order: 3, 1, 4, 2. What do you think? How would you rank the first four movies? And for those of you who have seen #5, where would you rank it with relation to the other four movies?

3 comments:

shoeaddict said...

I talked to Lindsay last night and she told me you two talked about me. So you thought I was a weird-o?? HA HA :)

Justin said...

Hey, anyone who checks MY blog on a regular basis has to be a little weird, right? :)

Annie said...

Hey Justin, I'm going to see #5 tomorrow, too, in IMAX 3D. We'll have to compare notes. Happy viewing!