Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Growing order
Review by Vives Anunciacion
Inquirer Libre July 13, 2007

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Directed by David Yates
Based on the book by JK Rowling
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
GP / 138 minutes
Warner Brothers Pictures
*** (3 stars)

It’s been four movies since Sorcerer’s Stone in 2001: Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) is now binata. How time flies. Or in this case, like a Phoenix: time stops in the middle and resurrects towards the end of the fifth and most information-laden Harry Potter movie. Order of the Phoenix represents a crucial point in our pop-cultural lives: the beginning of the end of Harry Potter.

In the movie, the Ministry of Magic flatly denies the return of the Dark Lord (Voldemort, played by Ralph Fiennes) while Harry and Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) desperately try to convince it otherwise. Harry returns to Hogwart’s for the fifth time, and finds Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) interfering with Hogwart’s affairs under the ministry’s authority.

Harry and his gang of followers secretly form their own Defense against the Dark Arts class, calling themselves Dumbledore’s Army, in response to Umbridge’s tyrannical methods. But they get exposed, and Dumbledore is charged with treason and is replaced by Umbridge as Hogwart’s headmaster.

Meanwhile, Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) recruits Harry into the Order of the Phoenix, a group devoted to fight Voldemort’s Death Eaters who are in search of a mystical object containing a particular prophecy. A climactic confrontation by Dumbledore’s Army and the Order of the Phoenix against the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters ends with terrible consequences. And the skies grow even darker.

To say that the series is becoming darker in story, look and tone with these final episodes is to repeat what the previous movie (Goblet of Fire) already meant. Also I think the publicists expect every reviewer to say so, so there: Order of the Phoenix is the darkest, most condensed Potter movie yet.

Relying heavily on the audience’s familiarity with its plot and characters, the movie lays the groundwork for the series’ inevitable conclusion. It is a plot-laden tale whose character development highlight involves a kiss with a fellow Hogwart’s student. Key word: series.

Visual effects still are great as money can buy, the music is atrocious, the river Thames is used as a background, and the staggering roster of acclaimed actors are practically underutilized – no thanks to the 800-page novel that had to be condensed into a 2-hour-plus movie that has to include as much information it can so the succeeding installments can still make sense.

Emma Watson has one great performance in the scene where Hermione and Ron (Rupert Grint) ask Harry about his first kiss. Newcomer Evanna Lynch makes an impression as Luna Lovegood, but it is Staunton who stands out as the bedimpled tyrant Umbridge. Children will no longer look at pink the same way as before.

Order of the Phoenix represents a new paradigm for the remaining Harry Potter films – that the sixth and seventh movies are now critic-proof. Whatever happens, audiences who have grown with Daniel Radcliffe will necessarily see Half-Blood Prince and the finale, Deathly Hallows. Stop calling it a kid’s movie, the star is no longer one.

Whether directors Alfonso Cuaron (Azkaban) or Mike Newell (Goblet) made the best of the series or whether another director could have made the difference with the fifth no longer matters. At this point, several years after the first movie, the sum of the series’ parts is becoming the order of the day.

For the moment, Order of the Phoenix is a competent addition to the previous installments, neither greater nor weaker; it’s a necessary supplement to a long and familiar story that’s now drawing to a close.

But for the love of God, finish this series on the seventh outing, and let the actors – as well as the audience – take on new lives. I can’t imagine Radcliffe holding his own kid in his arms.

Die Hard 4.0 review

McToughie
Review by Vives Anunciacion

Die Hard 4.0
Directed by Len Wiseman
Starring Bruce Willis, Justin Long
PG 13/ 130 minutes
20th Century Fox
** ½ (2 ½ stars)

Seems like old times. It’s been twelve years since detective John McClane last appeared to shoot ‘em bad guys. He just keeps going.

On the Fourth of July weekend, computer hackers attack the main networks of the US infrastructure grid, shutting down its transportation, communications and power. Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) is on a routine assignment to bring computer hacker Matt Ferrel (Justin Long) to the FBI when McClane discovers that Ferrel is one of the hackers hired by a mysterious organization out to topple the US financial system.

As the federal government scrambles to restore order while figuring out who the perpetrators are, tough guy McClane and tech geek Ferrel emerge as the unlikely dynamic duo who will stop the terrorists’ plans at all costs, even risking the life of McClane’s daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Timothy Olyphant plays the hacker ringleader Thomas Gabriel.

I could have easily given it a higher score because, implausibility aside, it’s a decently made action flick, flying cars, jet fighters and all. Willis is so comfortable playing McClane it’s almost impossible to tell them apart. And Justin Long, more popularly known as the Mac guy in the Apple Mac ads, pleasantly doesn’t play the annoying sidekick. But this isn’t an acting movie, it’s an gun-enforced action flick reeking with nostalgia.

At more than two hours of almost non-stop chase, explosion and gun-shooting scenes, the movie’s real conceit is its main selling point: that the fourth Die Hard movie is an old fashioned 80s style action movie not much different in theme, in language and in politics from the last Die Hard, With a Vengeance.

What is wrong isn’t its un-use of computer effects to do real stunts by real stuntmen the way action movies were shot years ago. That’s actually a good thing, particularly the stunts by the French baddies doing parkour jumping.

What’s wrong is that its storyline belongs to the 90s, like a Dirty Harry movie under the Reagan administration, where the bad guys want to overrun America as if it’s the only country in the world. Its sentiments are old-school, to the point that in order to annoy his nemesis, McClane insults Gabriel by calling his girlfriend as “another dead Asian hooker bitch.” Those lines belong to the pre-Politically Correct world, implying how “old world” the mindset of the writers are.

Die Hard 4.0 makes sure it’s a throwback to the old Die Hard movies by making quick references to them all the time. That doesn’t make it a classic movie series, it only means DH 4.0 is related to the old ones. And if the old stuff works just as fine today, that’s okay. It just means it’s a tried and tested formula.

Been there, done that.

Transformers review

Roll out!
Review by Vives Anunciacion
Inquirer Libre June 29,2007

Transformers
Directed by Michael Bay
Starring Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Peter Cullen (voice)
Based on the toys and cartoon of the same name
GP/ 143 minutes
DreamWorks, Paramount, Hasbro
*** ½ (3 ½ stars)


It only happens to a few films: at the end of the press screening, the audience exploded into cheer. Transformers is entertainment to a perfect T and filmmaking of impressive proportions. Make way for the first bona fide summer blockbuster of the year.

Based on the extremely popular 1980s cartoons and action figures from US toymaker Hasbro, Transformers is Michael Bay’s most action-packed popcorn movie since the smart sci-fi, The Island and the Will Smith action-comedy Bad Boys II.

In Transformers, Earth becomes the battleground between Autobots and Decepticons locked in an ancient battle for the possession of the all-powerful cube and planet Cybertron’s source of life and energy, the Allspark, which landed on Earth thousands of years ago.

Beginning (and ending) with a narration by Autobot leader Optimus Prime that explains the reasons why the alien robots are on earth, the Autobots find a human ally in the teenager Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), whose great grandfather happened to discover the Allspark during an Arctic expedition.

When the opposing sides learn of the location of the Allspark, Sam becomes entangled in an interstellar tug-of-war that would also involve the firepower of the US military. As the Decepticons, led by the ruthless Megatron, leave a trail of destruction, the Autobots, fewer in number, in turn protect the humans from their evil counterparts. In the end, only one side would stand while the other falls.

Mixing a proper blend of introductory storytelling and fan-pleasing robot smackdowns, Transformers is filled to the brim with scene-after-scene of high-octane action (or should I say energon-induced?). Shia LaBeouf is perfectly cast as an ordinary teenager enjoying his first car, a yellow Camaro, which turns out to be the Autobot, Bumblebee. A movie tie-in with General Motors explains why the Autobots are specifically GM cars, so fans of Bumblebee shouldn’t complain much why the Bee isn’t a Volkswagen Beetle.

Newcomer Megan Fox is Sam’s beauty love interest, Mikaela, while John Turturro and Jon Voight provide appropriate characters as Agent Simmons and defense secretary Keller, respectively. Good casting too in retaining the original Optimus Prime voice actor, Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving who vocally adds menace to the already menacing Megatron. Lots of thrilling action, but also very loud sound and intrusive musical scoring especially in scenes involving too much explosions.

While some plotlines aren’t clear why the good guys are good and the bad guys are repeatedly mistaken for cold-war communists (Russia? China? North Korea?), and why some things are different from the cartoons – those are left for the eventual sequels to resolve. For the most part, the story isn’t its strength. Transformers’ stars are obviously the robots and the very impressive CGI by Industrial Light and Magic. The transformations are such a sight to behold it is probably impossible to be awed if seen on a small screen; at some point, the audience unanimously sighed. This is an action movie, through and through.

Now troop to the cineplex and hear the words repeated by legion. All hail Optimus Prime.