The End is the Beginning is The End

Bit of an odd week at the cinema for me.  Due to the four day presence of a twelve year old nephew, I have put off watching both Bridesmaids (I know, I’ve had enough time to see it, but finding a night when both me and my lady are up for a trip to my workplace is becoming increasingly difficult) and one I’m particularly looking forward to, Horrible Bosses.  Instead, I saw something less ‘horrible’ and more, ah, horrid.  Yes, Tuesday afternoon involved a trek down to the cinema in Tatooine levels of heat to watch Horrid Henry.  Here’s what I took from the experience: The kid who played the lead was, I thought, actually very watchable, there now seems no turning back for Richard E. Grant from the dignity-robbing family film crevice he’s been steadily carving out since Spiceworld, Noel Fielding’s got a little doughy round the face, and suspicions are confirmed about two male kids’ TV presenters whose names I simply cannot allow to appear in my blog.  Suffice to say, they are cunts.

Two days before that though, I reluctantly received my first injection of every child’s favourite young wizard.  In 3D.  Now, I realise that starting with not just the final Potter film, but the final part of the final Potter film may not have been the best strategy, but the boy’s twelve, of course he’s gonna want to watch Harry Potter over Captain America.  Despite my protests.

So yeah, last Potter film, first Potter film for me.  And I quite enjoyed it, y’know.  Obviously there were parts where some previous knowledge may have helped me make some sense of things, but I picked it up – Harry needs to take down that pale faced guy, the three leads have this sort of Dawson/Joey/Pacey history going on, we thought Alan Rickman had turned evil but it turns out he had to kill the old wizard, I get it.  I was helped by the incredibly efficient storytelling, in which every scrap of dialogue seems to serve a clear narrative purpose, presumably because all the characters have been firmly established in previous instalments.  I was surprised at the relentlessly ropey acting from both Radcliffe and uh, Hermione.  Or, well, maybe that’s a little unfair.  It could be more down to a reluctance to deviate from the script, with all of that mechanical, plot-furthering dialogue, but it comes across as just that: actors spewing out rehearsed lines.  And isn’t that the mark of a decent actor?  The ability to make practised dialogue appear spontaneous and in-the-moment?  Yeah, no it wasn’t unfair.  Hermione was terrible.  But man, did you see when the evil pale face man died?  Awesome.  And those floating wraith things?  Badass.  And the two shots where something lurched out towards you, obviously put in at the studio’s request to try to fool the fools into thinking that it was worth watching in 3D?  Ace.