This is a review of the 8 movie series based on the novels. After a multiple day binge, I finished the entire series in a week. The harry potter series had a lot of good things going for them that led to its ultimate success but first I want to talk about the story.
As you can see from the synopsis, the theme is set in a wizarding world that exists simultaneously with the muggle (non-magic) world, but in secrecy. Harry potter being the main protagonist, a pure-blood (both parents of magic descent) boy who survived one of the three unforgivable curses, Avada Kevadra (The killing curse). But the survival was at the cost of his parents who protected him from the source of the spell, ‘Voldemort’, The antagonist of the movie. Voldemort is out to finish what he started, seeking to kill the infamous ‘boy who lived’. At the same time Harry potter learns of his horrid past and is out to seek his parents’ murderer.
The first 2 movies of the series directed by Chris Columbus are light hearted children’s movies, first one being more so than the second. The colour scheme of the movies reflect that with bright yellows and reds (which also are the Gryffindor house colours) with lots of clear blue skies throughout the 2 movies. It focused more on the magical world and its fascinating quirks and intricacies. Young harry potter and his pals after side adventures and scoring points for their house ‘Gryffindor’ being the main goal. The storytelling and acting are equally appalling but yet understandable considering the target audience are children. The actors themselves being children, over acted A LOT, while the adult actors where average at best. A lot of it could be attributed to the lack luster directing I guess, as the movie really picked up steam from the third movie onwards with a change in the director, theme of the movie as well as the actor playing the headmaster ‘Dumbledore’.
The third movie is where the movie gets a lot more serious, as harry potter finds out he is on the verge of getting murdered. This is the turning point in the movie series that focuses whole heartedly on the story and lets go of the magical world gimmick. The series starts filling up with load of plot twists and thrilling moments that leaves me as an audience wondering what the hell happened. The movie builds up tension among the different characters, hinting at who can be trusted and who cannot, simply to completely demolish all our presumptions and show who the real good guys and bad guys are. This is done a lot throughout out the series, especially with the ever changing Defence Against the Dark Arts professors.
Along with the change in tone of the movie, changed the colour scheme which aptly turned dark blue, dark green and black with unending grey skies. This is also harmonised with the astounding scoring for the movies. All the way from quirky strings in the initial movies to intense crescendos in the latter half, the soundtrack made the whole movie that much more immersive and kept swaying and altering with the mood set by the visuals. Which takes me to the next part; Visuals. The CGI taken to make the movie is pretty note worthy. A ‘magic’ movie of sorts with shitty visuals would just be immensely cringe, no matter who mind blowing every other aspect of the movie is. So in that mote, making the wizarding world seem possible and in-fact