Unfortunately, this book is a lot like The Philosopher's Stone except not that much better. In fact it's the same plot structure - Harry against the enemy at school, and a certain teacher who's the foil, a certian teacher who hates him, others he can trust, plus friends and enemies among students ... but it loses the shine of the freshness of the Philosopher's Stone.
The "anagram of Tom Riddle" device is not really very clever.
This book does introduce Ginny Weasley who turns out to be a better character later on in the series. Right now, she's not very interesting. Wait for her to grow up and gain a personality. Oh and it introduces Dobby, who, along with other house elves, become more interesting later on.
I read this one and watched the movie thinking "A bit more of the same, unfortunately it's getting a little tired now. And what's up with the Defence of the Dark Arts position?"
Some bright spots:
I actually thought some of the best bits worth commenting on were in the movie.
The whole Gilderoy Lockhart character - the vain, pompous, autograph-writing, egocentrical teacher is a good idea - but it's especially well carried out by Kenneth Branagh. And that duel between him and Professor Snape is really nicely done.
And I also liked seeing Arthur Weasley when Harry was brought back to the Weasley's place, and Mr Weasley interrogates him about Muggles (his obsession).
The way he asked Harry "What is the use of a rubber duck?" was actually really funny - and from what I remember, that wasn't even in the book.
(Oh and for the critics who complained that Hermione was not ugly enough in the movies - the scene where she takes Polyjuice Potion and turns half-cat should convince you she isn't always really cute, neither!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment