Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Yeeeeehaw!!! Harry Potter is FINALLY here!!! So I won't be one of the diehard fans that will be seeing the film for the first time at 12:01.....but I will be seeing it soon...
The critics have mixed reviews for the fifth installment of the HP franchise. It doesn't help that the film is trying to compete with JK's seventh and final HP book due out next week. People already know how the movie ends...what they don't know is how the series will wrap up. Fans are also nervous after having seen Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban. JK's books are so long that much of the plot has to be trimmed down or avoided altogether in order to fit in a two hour feature film. In Azkaban many thought the movie failed to include some important plot points that would be important when the fifth installment came around. We'll know for sure how the movie makers made up for it tonight. The fifth installment of the series was 900 + pages and screenwriters had one heck of a time trimming the material down. Word has it that special effects and some of Britian's finest actors help guide The Order of the Phoenix to Box Office Success. Fans also have the opportunity to enjoy the film in IMAX which is said to bring the wizardry to life.
I am most anxious to see how the actors that make up the core of the Potter franchise have grown. In watching interviews with the young stars...Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint...I have noticed a greater level of maturity. These are kids who have grown up in these roles and in the spotlights and understand the responsibility that comes with it. I am most impressed with Watson. In an interview in Parade magazine she explained how difficult a decision it was for her to sign on as Hermione for the last two movies in the series. She enjoys as much of a normal lifestyle as possible and is in no hurray to go all out Hollywood. She is the opposite of a Hilary Duff...who turned down Disney for an extention of Lizzie McGuire to go on to bigger and better (to be determined :) things. Watson wants to remain true to the part that audiences everywhere have grown to love. She said she couldn't imagine anyone else playing the role...and neither could we. It wasn't an issue of money...it was an issue of privacy and self-preservation that made Emma nervous about signing on. She will be around 20 when the last Harry Potter movie hits theatres. That's a very long time to associate yourself with just one title character. And yet, she doesn't seem interested in going the route of her co-stars (like Ratcliffe who left his clothing behind for a role in a London play) and attempting to find roles that could provide her an opportunity to branch out of her Hermione skin. I have a feeling that someday she will do just that...but she is smart, and sophisticated, and she won't take some cheesy, chick-flick like role just because. As she pointed out...she never has to work again if she doesn't want to...so there is no need to rush into anything. Good for you Emma.

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