Harry Potter- round 6-who's ready?

[innerSpaceman]

Hahah, loved a review I recently came across in the New Yorker.

Originally Posted by Anthony Lane

Why is that, from Gotham City to Hogwarts, the official word has gone out that anything dark and edgy is a de-facto guarantee of weight and impact? Just what is so serious about horny adolescents cooking potions? We get one lovely, cheering sequence of a trashed room putting itself in order, like the untidy nursery in "Mary Poppins," but the rest of the magic here feels randomly grabbed at - there is something called a vanishing cabinet, whose narrative purpose is wholy redundant - and, as if in response to such silliness, Yates tries to stiffen his story with borrowings from "The Lord of the Rings." We get a dead spider named Aragog, which is a breath away from Tolkien, plus Gandalfian flourishes from Dumbledore, and a rock pool that crawls with a hundred Gollums.

TeeHee. In all fairness, it's hard not to imitate Tolkien in fantasy. It would be like complaining every pirate movie ever made is ripping off the ride at Disneyland.

But the vanishing cabinet critique is spot-on. I understand they deleted the big battle scene lest the next movie seem repetitive, but then the entire reason for the vanishing cabinet is rendered moot and is a gaping plot hole of stupidity.

If the death eaters that come through the cabinet aren't going to attack the school, why go through all the trouble, that apparently takes the whole school year, to work out the bugs and transport through the cabinet? They went to great lengths to have the assassin, Draco, and his back-up, Snape, already installed and part of the accepted people at Hogwarts. If death eaters were going to come through the cabinet, why did they need these key players in place?

Gotta be careful when you eliminate some things from the book .... other things have to go also, or you risk making NO SENSE.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

In all fairness, it's hard not to imitate Tolkien in fantasy. It would be like complaining every pirate movie ever made is ripping off the ride at Disneyland.

[movie snob]

Pish-posh. It would be like complaining every pirate movie ever made is ripping off Captain Blood!

[/movie snob]