Harry

I recently watched all five Harry Potter movies in a marathon (well, not a true marathon-- I watched four one day and the fifth the next morning-- misjudged how long it would take).

These are really good movies that show what can happen when you stick relatively close to the source material. While staring child actors predominantly and with special effects so prevalent, they could have easily gotten out of hand or had such poor acting that they were laughable. Which leads me to...

Chris Columbus was an absolutely inspired choice for the Sorcerer's Stone. I know many people find his direction of this movie a little pedestrian, given the content, I think that is exactly what was needed here. In the first film, you are introducing everyone to the visual world of the cinematic Harry Potter universe. You have a ton of effects, creatures, people, and story lines to get people into and used to. By having someone like Columbus directing it, the audience is not additionally burdened with odd, hectic, unusual, or bad direction. No "shaky-cam" to jar you out of the world during the action scenes. No odd camera angles or weird color palette to confuse the audience during the dramatic scenes. Everything was laid out, the majority of the book's central themes, characters, and plots managed to make it into the movie, and it is clear and clean to watch for just about all ages.

Of special note in this movie is the strong adult cast, headed by Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, and Robbie Coltrane. Without the strong adult cast to help the child actors with their parts, but also let the children shine in their roles, this movie may have been sunk before it began. But the adults were able to help coax better performances by being foils to the young actors.

All that being said, I think Chris Columbus was a poor choice for Chamber of Secrets. This movie starts moving the HP characters into dire circumstances, begins to show that the world of HP is not all light and fun, and has some dark and moody sets that could have been really explored. Columbus is not the director to do any of that. So, we get a staid, bland, and no sign of the moody, eerie, almost horrifying areas of the forest and the Chamber.

Unfortunately, this is the last of the series starring Richard Harris, who died shortly after making it. While I do not mind his replacement, I thought Harris brought a little extra something to the table and really took on Dumbledore. When I read the books now, it is his face and voice I hear for this character.

For Prisoner of Azkaban, the production crew hired Alfonso Cuaron. This is the most visually interesting and most unusually directed movie in the series, and it makes me wish Cuaron had done more than one (and especially Chamber). In this film, the children are growing up fast, the world is becoming more deadly around them, and the plots are more nefarious. Harry is under siege from his classmates, the Ministry, and, it seems, even his teachers.

Cuaron uses his sense of style to move the color palette into a darker, richer arena, which befits this story. He also uses some interesting camera shots and angles. One of my favorites is when Harry is trying to defend Sirius on the shore of the lake. As Harry falls unconscious, the camera stays locked on Harry's face, so it looks more like the world around Harry is moving, rather than him falling unconscious to the ground. His style manages to emphasize the shifting allegiances and unstable ground on which Harry walks in this story, without being overly jarring or overdone.

This movie is the first with Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. Gambon does a wonderful job, and doesn't try to be the same Dumbledore as Harris. However, I just don't believe him in the role in the same way as I did Harris. I know others who think Gambon is a better Dumbledore, and I accept that. To each their own. I also cannot imagine a better person for Sirius than Gary Oldman, who brings the right amount of passion and fatherly love to the role.

Goblet of Fire sees Mike Newell step in as director. This is the darkest Harry story yet, and includes the first big death in the Harry Potter, so it could have really kept the momentum going from Cuaron's direction. However, instead, Newell goes back to a more staid style and straight camerawork. While the palette remains dark, everything else comes across a little blandly.

The good thing is that the children really start to blossom with their acting here. In the first two films, the adults really helped the children to give great performances and ensure the movie a strong rudder. In Azkaban, the main children start to break free and become stronger performers on their own. In this movie, those performances start to be nuanced, adult, and interesting. Their emotes seems genuine and they don't seem to be "acting" so much. This is good, because the adults really take a step back in this one and become much more secondary characters, allowing the main three children in particular to step into their lead roles in the series.

David Yates takes on the directing chores for Order of the Phoenix. His style is a little looser and more interesting than Newell or Columbus, but not as stunning as Cuaron. We get Harry out in the "real world" more, and a lot more danger for everyone. This story continues the darkening trend of the story as a whole, and Yates adds a lot of nice touches to the dream sequences and action scenes. He also uses a richer color palette to show the differences between the dreams and reality; the dreams are almost all in a cool blues, greens, and blacks, while the real world has bright, warm, but deep reds, yellows, and browns. Which makes the climax that much more interesting -- it slides from the cools to the rich warm colors and back frequently, and the combat between Dumbledore and Voldemort uses both palettes in the same scenes.

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in particular show a lot of growth as actors in this film. Daniel appears to become the leader of the actors that Harry has become of the students in this story. Evanna Lynch is incredibly spot-on as Luna Lovegood, and hits all the right notes as the dreamy, strange, misunderstood good who becomes a valuable ally to Harry. Imelda Staunton is the adult stand out in this film; her Delores Umbridge is perfect in her pink outfits, with her high-pitched laugh, and her oily, unctuous smile.

My biggest complaint about the second through fifth films is how they felt they must cut a lot of the side stories out and focus entirely on Harry's tale for the movies. While this makes sense and I don't mind them doing it, I would have liked to see some of those side stories brought to life. For example, I think the entire story of Hermione trying to free the house elves that live in Hogwarts would have been a nice, light side story to have in an otherwise darker story. But, again, I understand the reasons why they did it.

It was fun revisiting these films and watching them all together. As the primary actors, crew, and writers are virtually the same on all of the films, the direction is really the only difference between them (of note, Steve Cloves wrote the screenplay for all the films except Order). It is too bad they couldn't get Cuaron to do more than one film, and that the direction choices since then have been more staid than energetic. However, Yates did a nice job on the last one and should do a nice job on Half-Blood Prince.