I just rewatched all of the Harry Potter movies. I'm not sure why I did this, but it was an interesting experience. Watching them all back-to-back helps you appreciate the ways in which various cast members grow over the years, as actors and also as human people. It also makes a movie-by-movie comparison much easier by removing the time and anticipation that formed between each release during the original theatrical run. That is, it's easier to effectively and objectively (kinda) rank each movie against its counterparts. Which is good, because that's what I'm about to do for some reason.
Harry Potter: From Best to Worst
1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
The Good:
Kid's Stuff
I just finished re-reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher/Sorcerer's Stone and its amazing what an unassuming book it is. It's fun and simple; just a pleasantly shapeless main character thrust into a colorful environment where mildly calamitous events take place. People often complain about the later books becoming overly dark, but I don't find them dark so much as heavy - as in weighed down with lots and lots of stuff. That's not a negative. Heavy can be good. But it's easy to forget how delightfully airy the first book is. It doesn't carry itself like a genre-redefining piece of fiction, because as a work, it very much isn't genre-redefining. It's pretty much a straight up genre template, filled in with nice little flourishes.
Anyway, the first movie matches that tone pretty perfectly. The stakes are low and the focus is squarely on the wonder of it all. It's a pleasantly unburdened kind of film. Even though future advancements retroactively make the first book/movie a bit more sinister in hindsight, as an independent experience, it's enchanting. And that's another key point - it's the only movie that really works as an independent experience. You can just watch Harry Potter and the Philocerer's Stone and nothing else and have a pretty super time of it.
Hermione Granger
Hermione Granger is by far the most entertaining character in the film, because she is so desperately faulty. We forget that about her almost immediately and the character downgrades dramatically with each passing movie because of it. But here she's spot on. She's a rotten know-it-all. She's nosy. She doesn't understand people very well. She's brilliant in the worst, showiest kind of way. People don't like her and they're totally justified in not liking her. It's the best acted part among the younger main characters and rings the truest. Plus, that hair really is a fucking mess.
The Neutral:
Harry Potter
Daniel Radcliffe is not good in this movie. He gets way, way better with time, but here he can barely talk like a human being. Thankfully, it never derails the movie in any significant way. Alternatively, there are points where his inability to act actually works pretty well, given how alien Harry must feel - both at Hogwarts and at home with the Dursleys. But for the most part, he seems like a kid who just wandered onto a movie set and has no idea what's going on.
The Bad:
GRYFFINDORWINSLOL
Dumbledore is a dickhead. Bad people getting their comeuppance is pretty standard, but letting Slytherin spend most of the feast thinking they'd won the House Cup, only to HAHABONUSPOINTS them at the end is sheer assholery. They're fucking children, Dumbledore.
2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The Good:
Damn, I Hate This Bitch
Dolores Umbridge is peerless as a villain in this series. She's head and shoulders above everyone else set in Harry's path and it's not even close. Voldemort is just too goddamn much. He's uber-evil. Mega-evil. He suffers from Evil for Evil's Sake Syndrome. Comically, overly evil people are harder to be upset by. Voldemort is comic book evil. Fantasy novel evil.
Dolores Umbridge is a wholly different kind of evil - a very real kind of evil. The evil of fanatical ideology. She simply believes something so strongly she's willing to do insanely ruthless things in the name of her beliefs. There's no indication that she's even a Death Eater, which somehow makes the things she does - the things she's willing to do - that much worse. She's the kind of person you should be afraid of, because she's the kind of person who actually exists in our world. Everything about her arc - everything related to the central idea of a well-meaning government agency grossly overstepping their bounds and doing terrible harm (in their attempt to prevent harm) - works because we can relate to it.
Harry F'n Potter
Harry is King Shit of the magical world. Everybody loves him. And then everybody hates. And then they love him again. And then they hate him. It's a fairly wretched cycle. The problem is that everyone should probably just hate Harry and leave it at that. Everything amazing he's done is usually tied to about 15 shitty things he did to get to that point. He breaks rules like a motherfucker. He lucks into ridiculous shit constantly. He's Harry Potter. Bold italic underline every goddamn thing.
Harry Potter as teacher, however, is the first time it feels like Harry has actually earned the respect and admiration of his peers. Up to now, he's either put himself in shitty situations or been thrown into those situations against his will. He's handled it all pretty well, but if you're a classmate, how should you really feel about Harry? He's brought ridiculous amounts of danger onto himself and others. It's great that he's survived, but seriously, fuck that guy.
Humble, secret drill instructor Harry provides genuine benefit to his classmates. He's adding value to their lives and honestly, how often can you say that having Harry at Hogwarts has been in any way beneficial to his classmates? It's just nice to see him earning his name, because Harry Potter the Messianic Fuckwit was starting to wear thin.
The Neutral:
Who Gives a Shit About Cho Chang?
Cho's basically here to job out her comrades in Dumbledore's Army and give Harry someone to make out with so we can confirm that Harry's a heterosexual male. She has no personality. I just...I just don't give a shit about Cho Chang. I guess I just needed to get that out there.
"This is Luna Lovegood. You've Never Met Her Before for Some Reason"
Luna's a great character and one of the few who survives the book-to-screen transition largely intact. But there's no goddamn way Harry and Ron need to be introduced to Luna after going to the same, not-especially-large school together for 4 years. It's really just symptomatic of a certain book-problem that's a much worse movie-problem, which is the constant, "Oh yeah, by the way, here's another thing you don't know about, Harry..." I get that Harry is our avatar in the magical world, but after the first couple years at Hogwarts, things need to be slightly less surprising to Harry, because it makes him look stupid and/or lazy.
Related/unrelated gripe - too many modes of magical transportation. Thestrals are all well and good, but are invisible fucking horses really better than enchanted boats? If not for the fact that they need them at the end of the movie, is there really any value to domesticating see-through zombie Pegasuses? (Pegasi?)
The Bad:
What the Hell is Happening?
The ending is a mess. It's just a dark, hot, explodey mess. Just...I don't...lights...and smoke...I don't know. I just don't know.
Learn How to Close Your Mind in Zero Easy Steps
I seem to recall the Occulancy (no idea if I'm spelling that made up word correctly) lessons being important in the book. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Either way they're almost pointless in the movie.
"Close your mind!"
"How?"
"TOOLATEI'MINYOURBRAIN."
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The Good:
A Lived-In World
Critics seem to generally believe that the third Harry Potter movie is the best of the bunch. (It's actually got the second highest Metacritic score behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2...I would not have guessed that. For fun and profit, here's how mass critical opinion ranks the Potter movies:
1. ...Deathly Hallows P2 (87)
2. ...Prisoner of Azkaban (82)
3. ...Goblet of Fire (81)
4. ...Half-Blood Prince (78)
5. ...Order of the Phoenix (71)
6. ...Deathly Hallows P1 (65)
7. ...Sorcerer's Stone (64)
8. ...Chamber of Secrets (63)
My point, I suppose, is that critical opinion is, at the very least, partially retarded.)
After two of those candy-colored Chris Columbus movies, Prisoner begins Harry Potter's inexorable slide into darkness, both figurative and literal (the sun no longer seems to shine on Hogwarts). But here the change is welcome. This version of the wizarding world feels slightly more lived in. Reasonably grimy. It feels less like some strange pocket out of time, and more like what it is, which is a unique, but isolated culture.
Dark, But Still Fun
The tone (and the color palette) changes in the third movie, but it's still relatively lighthearted, which is a difficult balance, what with all the soul-sucking going on.
The Neutral:
Lumos Maxima! Lumos MAXIMA!
The short pre-credits scene is Harry under the covers in his room at the Dursleys using a spell to read a book late at night. I don't know why this pisses me off, but it most definitely does. I think it's less to do with simply breaking the rule against underage wizardry (which is actually a significant plot point in the fifth movie), but the fact that you're breaking a previously established (and seemingly important) rule for the sake of aesthetics. It just echoes a recurring grievance I have with this film - it's a good looking piece of art that feels like it was made by someone who didn't much care for the source material. It doesn't make the movie bad, it just makes me feel less connected to the final product.
The Bad:
What the Hell Happened to You, Dumbledore?
Hippy Dumbledore has arrived and Jesus H. Christ. This guy. Amirite?
So Richard Harris played Dumbledore in the first two films and he was nearly perfect. He played the World's Greatest Wizard with a slow, airy, winking grace. He conveyed intelligence, power, and mischief.
Sadly, Richard Harris died and was replaced with Michael Gambon. Eventually, Gambon got Dumbledore (see my Half-Blood Prince notes below...waaaay below), but here the change is jarring. He looks different, he sounds different, and he acts different. He's a completely different character and it jams up Prisoner in a number of crucial moments.
Because you probably won't make it down to the Half-Blood Prince section (this really is an embarrassing number of thoughts about the Harry Potter movies), let me say this about the Two Dumbledores situation: in the end, it works out. Essentially, Harris plays Dumbledore as Harry (and we) see him initially - wise, nearly flawless, mostly unknowable, and separate from normal human frailty. He's a child's vision of magical protector. Gambon, on the other hand, plays Dumbledore as he really is - human, rash, selfish, misguided, and ultimately regretful. Both are true, since we're experiencing things largely through Harry's POV. It would have been interesting to see Harris' take on the later material, but as it is, it's somewhat fitting that we got two Dumbledores.
Emotin' Ain't Easy
Since a large part of the plot revolves around Sirius Black betraying the Potters, the story becomes a bit more personal. Sirius isn't a black hole of evil like Voldemort - he's a friend and confidant who exploited that friendship. Harry's rightly pissed about this, which is the most of any emotion D'Radcliffe's been asked to play so far in the franchise. He is not up to the task. And his anger is funny as a result. His anger should not be funny.
I know. I'm kind of just being a dick at this point. Start your own blog if you don't like it.
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
The Good:
Rip 'Em to Shreds
This was my favorite book and they had to cut it to shreds to make a serviceable movie out of it. And, for the most part, they succeeded. The bare bones approach works well and by keeping the focus squarely on the tournament, with almost all of the action flowing out of events connected to the tournament, the movie feels comparatively lithe.
The Stuff With the Dragon
Leaving aside how much of it didn't make any sense (is the dragon trained to guard the golden egg or murder Harry? Because he's good at one and not the other), the first task is a genuinely exciting sequence, which is good, because swimming in a dirty lake and running around a hedge maze were slightly less thrilling cinematic sequences.
The Neutral:
Women Are Useless
Well, Fleur is useless. I get that somebody had to come in last in each event, but Fleur comes across as borderline inept. She was beaten by grindylows, people! Fucking grindylows! When the flying carriage took off for Beaux Baton at the end of the film they should have left Fleur and her useless sister behind.
The Bad:
Hermione Granger
As discussed earlier, what makes Hermione Granger a compelling character is her non-perfection. If you've only watched the movies, you've likely forgotten this element of her character. The fourth movie is the best example of this disconnect. Everyone acts shocked - SHOCKED - that Viktor Krum would pine for Hermione, but why is that even a little bit weird? Movie Hermione is talented, hard-working, witty, loyal, and clearly one of the better looking girls in her school. It should be weird that NOT MORE boys have made a move on her. Her big Yule Ball reveal on the stairs scene is rendered meaningless in the movie, because we already know she's pretty. WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY ELSE?
Harry, Get a Goddamned Haircut
They're 14. I get it. 14-year-olds are idiots. But Jesus. The hair. The fucking HAIR.
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
The Good:
Fucking Up Gringotts
As the second half of a two part movie, there's no reason to fuck around. DH2 gets straight into the big, loud, fun set pieces with the robbery at Gringotts. It's a fast-paced, well staged action sequence.
Man, I've already written a lot about Harry Potter...what am I doing with my life...
The Battle of Hogwarts
DH2 rightly puts most of its two-plus hours of run time into Harry's return to Hogwarts and all the awful shit that follows his arrival. It makes for a relatively straightforward narrative (at least by Harry Potter standards). That's good. So I put it here...in the good section.
Don't worry. I'm getting tired of this, too.
The Neutral:
Snape Gets Jacked
Snape gets a shit send off. I think we can all agree on that. But I have two specific problems, one minor, one...well, I'm critiquing the fucking Harry Potter movies here, so I guess major is somewhat subjective. Anyway, we can recover memories from tears now? I get it - magic. But still, it's agitating that magic means there are absolutely no rules. Rules are fun in fiction. They create tension. It's hard to have tension when MAGIC.
Also, Snape's memories have some pretty fucking important details in them. It's STUPENDOUSLY lucky that Harry arrives in time to swipe Snape's saline memories before the Potions professor dies, but did Snape have any sort of original, significantly better plan for getting this info to Harry? Because waiting for a giant snake to murder-bite you before crying the information out seems like a pretty dumb-shit plan. But what do I know? I'm not a wizard.
Yet.
The Bad:
People Are Dead. Bummer, I Guess?
There are no wasted characters in the Harry Potter universe. At least in the books. By that I mean that everyone has a purpose, some obviously larger than others. And everyone tends to get a payoff. That's a good thing in the books, but here it really just means that there are way too many goddamn characters floating around, mostly just as 10 second pieces of window dressing. Oh, Lavender Brown got killed by a werewolf? Oh...no? Unfortunately, in an already overstuffed movie, there's just no time to care. Tonks died? We barely had any reason to care about Movie Tonks as it is. One of the Weasley twins died? That's legitima...oh, we've already moved on? We're not going to address that tragic death again? Oh, okay then. I guess I don't care.
Everyone Marries Their High School Sweetheart, Right?
I dunno. It's not the pairings, so much as the fact that all these 17-year-olds are just basically saying, "Alright, I guess it's you for the rest of my life." I get it. They've been through some shit. Is there no wizard college? Is it weird for wizards to date around a little bit once they've, you know, become adults?
Fat Ron
You look like shit, Future Ron. Way to prove everyone right about Hermione's low standards.
6. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The Good:
Lockhart's a Fun Character. Who the Fuck Hired Him?
Gilderoy Lockhart is a funny foil for Harry and his friends. He adds the only distinctly new dynamic to the film. I like him.
But seriously though, why the hell is he teaching at Hogwarts? I assume Dumbledore does the hiring, right? Does Dumbledore not know that Lockhart's a jackass? That goes against our perception of Dumbledore as being on his shit. If he intentionally hires an incompetent liar to teach the most important class...then...um...why?
You can tell I had a hard time coming up with stuff for the Good section of this film.
The Neutral:
More of the Same
Most people don't love Chamber and I think it's because Chamber is so disposable. It feels like a re-arranged rehash of Sorcerer's Stone. A Voldemort proxy (more or less) is the villain again. They're doing a lot of the same shit they did last time. It's fun, but it feels comparatively skippable.
Explain It To Me Again, Dobby
Dobby's also kind of a fun character, but let's ask ourselves how his whole storyline makes any sense. He knows something bad is going to happen at Hogwarts and doesn't want Harry to go back. Okay. Two points:
One - Dobby doesn't give a shit about all the other students and teachers at Hogwarts. Technically, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just weird. Something terrible is going to happen at Hogwarts - better protect Harry and ONLY HARRY. Yeah. Go slam your head against the dresser for that one, Dobby. You've earned it.
Two - We're suppose to infer that the Malfoys are plotting something, right? What was their plot? Lucius put Tom Riddle's diary in Ginny Weasley's cauldron. That's it. THAT WAS HIS WHOLE FUCKING PLAN.
Step 1. Bring evil diary to bookstore
Step 2. Drop it in some sucker's cauldron
Step 3. Profit
Obviously it worked out quite nicely, but what the hell, Lucius? No wonder shit goes to hell for you before all's said and done. You a lazy motherfucker.
The Bad:
I Don't Understand How Any of This Worked
Did Ginny write all that shit on the walls? You know, the ominous messages scrawled in blood? Even the last one - you know, the one about her bones lying forever in the Chamber?
Also, the Basilisk is goddamn HUMONGOUS. How is this thing sliding around in the water pipes? How big are the friggin' water pipes?
And how powerful are house elves? Because Dobby seems waaaaay more powerful than you'd think a member of the extremely downtrodden slave class would be. He can seemingly do the same magic as an adult witch or wizard, so why is he cleaning toilets and not rising up against the oppressive bourgeoisie?
I just...I need to stop talking about this stuff soon...
7. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
The Good:
Dumbledore
This is Dumbledore's best movie, which is lucky because SPOILER ALERT he gets GOT at the end of the movie. But before that, the character reveals a new level of depth. He finally recognizes that he hasn't handled things very well. That he's been arrogant. He starts talking and acting like a person.
That's key because it fuels the best stretch of the film - from the time he and Harry go off questing for Horcruxes to the moment he's murdered in the clock tower.
That's like 20 minutes of goodness. Cherish it. Hold it closely to your breast. Smother it if you must. Because you aren't getting much else positive from me on this one.
Harry is Hiiiiiiiiigh
I do enjoy Harry tripping balls on Liquid Luck, though.
The Neutral:
I Have a Headache
I literally got a headache watching this movie. It's so dimly lit. Even daytime scenes look like they were filmed during a swarm of locusts.
The Bad:
The Stupidest MacGuffin in a Series Full of Stupid MacGuffins
A "MacGuffin" is a storytelling term. It refers to an object or goal that drives the action in a story. The Harry Potter series is lousy with MacGuffins, but the Half Blood Prince wastes most of its time on the most pointless MacGuffin of all - Professor Slughorn's memory of a conversation with Tom Riddle. Slughorn believe that sharing that particular memory will "ruin" him, but here's how that conversation basically goes:
TOM: I read about Horcruxes
SLUGHORN: Ew. Really?
TOM: You can put parts of your soul in stuff.
SLUGHORN: Yup, that's true.
TOM: You have to kill people to make it work
SLUGHORN: Yup, also true.
TOM: Thanks for all the info I already knew!
SLUGHORN: WHAT HAVE I DONE????
He didn't suggest using a Horcrux. He didn't even provide instructions on how to create a Horcrux. He just fucking confirms that they're real and that Tom's right about how they work. Why in the unholy fuck doesn't he just share that with Dumbledore in the first place. "Sorry, just thought he was being a weirdo. Didn't know he'd start gatting people. My bad."
That Icky Teenage Feeling
I don't love Romione or Garry (Hinny?), but I can at least buy into them in book form, where there's a much deeper foundation. Ron and Hermione don't make sense unless you've seen them as flawed, slightly antagonistic people who unexpectedly complement each other. Ginny's simply a richer, more realized character in the books. Her growth mirrors Harry's in a lot of ways, so you can see what might attract them to each other.
But I'm not here to talk about the books. Movie Ron and Movie Hermione have no chemistry. Ron's a likeable dolt and permanent sidekick. Hermione's basically perfect. They don't make sense. Ginny and Harry, on the other hand, act like they constantly just met the day before. Besides the Quest for Slughorn's Pointless Memory, this movie is driven largely by relationship drama, which is all patently awful.
"I Am the Half-Blood Prince"
Who gives a shit? Seriously? I sometimes think the Half-Blood Prince crap was an afterthought, created solely in order to give the book an interesting title. Harry Potter and the Superfluous Memory Mission? Harry Potter and the Uninspired Boner? Harry Potter and the Dead Character You Liked, Who Could It Be? The mystery is almost nonexistent. Does it really matter? If the book wasn't called Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince couldn't we have just cut that entire part from the movie?
The answer is yes.
8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
This movie feels pointless. It isn't. A lot of stuff happens. But it can't stand on its own. It's kind of unfair, but because of that, it's the worst movie. I'm not even going to do a Best, Neutral, Worst, because I don't want to think about this movie.
This movie is basically a victim of the hole J.K. Rowling dug herself over the course of the previous novels. It's about heroes going on a quest without enough information to accomplish anything. Slag on the endless standing around in the woods scenes if you must (and you must), but that's where the story took them - literally nowhere. For a really, really long time.
Sucks that Dobby died, though. He was pretty gangsta. By house elf standards.