Reviews

After hearing quite a bit about this movie, I had high expectations about it...Well they were fulfilled! The quality of the production is excellent: the setting

(particularly the marshland), the sounds, the clothes, the details of the old house...They all help to build up the atmosphere of tension and mystery. The

woman in black herself is one of the best ghostly creations I have seen in a

movie: I found the moments when she appears -unexpectedly- in the

background, her silhouette just standing there, the most terrifying of the whole movie...Even more than the one particular scene mentioned in other comments.

The movie succeed also in leaving you with a sense of unease about the whole

story...The main character, Arthur Kidd, is sent by his boss, Mr Sweetman, on a mission that Sweetman himself knows it is doomed. He probably knows the true

meaning of the ghost's apparitions and still he sends Arthur, a likeable young husband and father, to settle old Mrs Drablow's estate. Then Arthur himself

seals his fate by saving the life of a young girl...At the end of the movie you find yourself reflecting on this terrible moral dilemma: if he left the girl to die, would have all this happened? Recommended viewing!!!

After a lovely hour queuing together with three year olds on sugar high,

yesterday I have seen Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. As this is the movie version of my favourite of the HP books so far, I had great expectations and couldn't wait to finally see it...So what's it like? I think it's one of the most frustrating movie I have ever seen!!! The fact that it is extraordinarily good in some things, and terribly bad in others made me feel a bit strange all the way through. I'll explain... On the production side, the movie is a gem: dark, stark and un-disneyish. Also the actors have improved and the new characters are quite impressively played by the likes of David Thewlis, Gary Oldman and Emma Thompson. Also, the

underlying moods of the movie have "grown up" since its predecessors. I have

enjoyed how the director plays with themes such as time (a strong element in

the whole HP series, related to Harry growing up, his past and his future) and Harry's perception of himself. BUT these great features are undermined by the huge cuts that the book

suffered when transposed to screenplay, mostly at the expense of character

development and tension build-up...Watching the movie you realise the climax

of the story has arrived and you have kind of missed how you got there!!! Also, the cuts mean that the audience never gets to hear why Snape hates Lupin and

Black so much, who the hell Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are, how

does Lupin know that the Marauder map is indeed a map, why Harry is so

obsessed by his fate and by dark omens, why cats, rats and dogs don't like each other, why Professor Trelawney prediction is so important, etc etc etc...I'll stop here! There's quite a lot left out, clearly, and sometimes I wondered if people who haven't read the book could actually understand what was going on. With the movie being so good in other respects, it's frustrating to see the story butchered and the characters thinned so much...The scene with Snape (Alan

Rickman is excellent...wish there was more of him), Lupin and Sirius in the

Shrieking Shack is so bloody brilliant that you wish it didn't last only 30 seconds, but that it were faithful to the book! You only get to see a spark of the hatred, recriminations and deceit that run among them...But then again, you only about this if you've read the book... So, in conclusion, go and see the movie for some good moments and for finally seeing some of your fantasies of POA represented on screen (Hogsmeade,

Buckbeak, the Marauders Map)...But for story, pathos and great

characters...Stick to the book!!!

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

What a disappointing movie this is... It starts wonderfully, gradually building up an atmosphere of fear and menace and mixing this with the spiritual troubles of ex-reverend Graham Hess... And then...Aliens who are supposed to travel for distant galaxies can't even open a door and attack a planet made 70% of water without even a raincoat on (and by the way, it NEVER RAINS! In all the time they're around, in any of the places they've landed in!!!), and hitting the alien with a baseball bat makes Graham understand that God exists and everything has a purpose.

Save your money, or rent "The Sixth Sense" with it.