Harry Potter

It really has been an impressive feat: eight movies over the course of ten years, featuring (mostly) the same cast all the way throughout. I don't need to get into the specifics of it though, because as a living, breathing human being you are very aware of what's happened here. You know the story whether you want to or not, whether you've read the books or not or even seen one movie or all eight (or none, if that's your thing). Harry Potter has infected the world, and the movie industry will never be quite the same - at the very least, we'll be barraged with fantasy movie franchises based on terrible (and decent, I suppose) books geared at kids and teenagers. If Harry Potter wasn't around, would we have the Twilight series? Think about that. Sure, Twilight may have been adapted into a movie regardless, but would they try and compress the entire run of books into one movie? I think the Harry Potter franchise has allowed the industry to dedicate a book per movie (and given everybody massive multi-movie contracts to ensure the same cast). But this is all besides the point that I don't really need or even want to get into.

I went to see The Deathly Hallows Part 2 at a midnight showing, which is definitely a new experience and a fitting one for the end of the Harry Potter series. You have to understand that I've seen every Potter movie in the theatre, within the first couple weeks of release each time. This is not unusual: I'm sure a lot of people did this. But it is relevant: it's ten years of sticking to one series. The problem is, there has been a ton of trilogies the past decade; the industry has changed and it's no problem for this sort of thing to happen. We didn't really get that in the 90's, although the 80's was full of them too (Back to the Future, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc). This Harry Potter spree is made more relevant - to me - in that I never got to see any of those aforementioned trilogies in their entirety in the theatre. I saw The Last Crusade in the theatre, even the third (should have been final) Die Hard, and maybe the last two Back to the Future films. Now, we have super-hero trilogies that come out every two years or so: you can see them all on the big screen without much hassle. But even with the current, and old franchises taken into consideration, there hasn't been as many to them as Harry Potter. And for that, there is significance.

The midnight showing was fantastic, and I don't think we really knew what we were getting into. There was a 12:01, 12:02 and 12:03 showing. What we didn't know was that each of those would be on three different screens each. This amounted to a lot of people catching one movie at the same time: the concession stands were absolutely insane, even an hour before the shows started. It goes without saying that the shows were sold out and theatres were at capacity. We arrived two hours before showtime; we were lucky to get decent seats. We got to see a lot of different people come in, and not as many costumes as I thought there would be: it's so easy to put on Harry glasses and the scar. There were people of all ages, but it was clear it was a younger crowd. I'm guessing the average age was around sixteen - and many were accompanied by their parents.

There was one kid sitting beside me - and I say kid loosely because he was clearly in his mid-teens (with his mom) and much taller than myself. This kid was ecstatic. He was literally vibrating throughout the movie. He shifted constantly, his fingers and hands in constant motion, and little seated jumps of joy every time something happened on screen. First, was my thought on how something like this could make one person so excited. Second, was realizing that Harry Potter has been in this kid's life since he was at least six or eight years old. If you add in the books, even younger (perhaps his parents read them to him when he was four, who knows). But even playing around with the ages a bit, and it's easy to see that this movie series has been around for a decade, and that's a huge portion of a person's life (a third of mine). If you're twenty, you've been going to see these since you were ten. That's insane. You've done a lot of growing from ten to twenty (obviously) both physically and mentally, and to be growing up with Harry Potter and his buddies must make the end of the series that much more significant. You're not just saying goodbye to a movie series, you're saying goodbye to friends.

All that, made the experience worth every penny. You could tell that people were waiting for specific scenes, just by how excited they become and their reaction when the scene finally did appear. I lost out on a lot of this as I didn't read the books, but I could feed off of, and appreciate the crowd. Was the film any good? The past few have been a bit of a bummer, but it ended well. Part 1 was boring and dragging; this one was all action. In the end, Harry didn't really do any spectacular magic but perhaps it doesn't matter. They've been a blast to watch.

Captain America

There's only one superhero more boring than Captain America, and that's Superman. Superman suffers from the whole too-powerful-to-be-interesting thing, while the Captain is basically so damn straight he's predictable, uninteresting and yes, boring. Superman can be decent; if you tone him down a bit in the powers department you can easily get excited when he starts doing super things. Reading certain comics, or watching his run in the Justice League cartoons, and you may have a chance at convincing a jury who just watched Superman Returns that he's not the worst character in the world. But I digress: Captain America is not uber-powerful (at least, I don't think so). He's just good in that all-American way, if that's even a thing anymore. That's perhaps why Captain America is now perceived as being boring: he had his purpose, knocking Nazi's in the jaw but in today's age (and even the last forty years) the practice is tired, and quite simply, he's outclassed. His moral fiber is so strong, that you know exactly what's going on (almost). Also, he's pretty one-dimensional. He's a good guy, always has and always will be. He fights the good fight and won't stop, ever.

So going to see Captain America, the movie, starring none other than Chris Evans and some other famous faces. First, it's weird that Evans gets to play both the Human Torch and the Captain, but I guess there's no chance of crossover so we're okay there, not to mention that it's so easy to just paste other people's faces onto other people's bodies these days (see: The Social Network). Second, I had little expectation from this movie, simply because I have little interest in the Captain himself: I've never read one of his comics. But, Marvel has been on a bit of a roll lately, with decent product like Thor and Iron Man. So, with all the factors mentioned and not, I walked away really happy from this movie, believing it to be one of the best action films of the past while.

I read tidbits about how they did the Steve Rogers part - you know, before the Captain was Captain - and the CGI trickery involved. I specifically turned off the centres of my brain that could process what I was taking in with any coherency, just so I could see it for myself, then be amazed when I found out how they did it after. For some reason I was under the impression that Evans did everything himself and they sucked out the muscle to get what you do, but no, they went a different direction and simply pasted his face onto some dude's body. It was seamless. Finding out afterwards, it was scary, because it's so clean. Not once did I think it was somebody else but an emaciated Evans. I kind of wonder if Bale would do the same technique in The Machinist if he were to do the movie today.

Steve Rogers is the focus of the movie, taking up the first act, if you will. He's a fighter, and he's driven to do his part for the war (WWII, of course). Salvaging scrap metal isn't enough, so he tries to enroll multiple times, only to get shot down repeatedly, just as he does in everything in life. The kid is selfless and determined. Like I said, he is driven. So when he gets injected with magic serum and becomes the the super soldier, he no longer suffers from being one dimensional. I read in another review that Captain America is not conflicted (true) and that other Marvel (and other properties) characters are (also true). Other heroes have issues, which makes them relatable (being a nerd, being an alcoholic, having anger problems, etc, etc) but Captain America has no problems: he's perfect. He's no Superman but he's up there. Super strength, speed - basically enhanced human-everything - and a massive desire to fight the good fight. He has no secret identity, and everyone loves him. So he has no problems, so you can't really like him. But in this movie, they manage to get you to like him, which allows you to enjoy the wacky action and dialogue throughout the movie - thoroughly.

There are only a few moments of disgrace and what I can only assume is poor script and perhaps some overzealous cutting. But all in all, very solid throughout and most importantly, interesting. This is how it's done, and I hope they continue to do it like this.