Day three of the EYG 8 Days of Potter brought me what I have considered, prior to this re-watch, the best Harry Potter movie of the bunch.  Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban takes the franchise on a different path.

Year three at Hogwarts brings the next threat to the boy wizard.  The deadly Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) escapes from the prison Azkaban and everyone believes he was after Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe).  Black was convicted of murder and was reputed to have told Voldemort where Harry’s parents were, selling them out.

This movie broke the Harry Potter formula that the first two films followed closely.  Chris Columbus, who directed the first two, stepped aside and gave way to Alfonso Cuarón.  Cuarón brought with him a dark tone, much darker than anything that we had seen from Harry Potter before.  The entire set up of the story and the execution of the plot are extremely clever and well done, completely different than the previous films.  Going in this direction truly transformed the Harry Potter series to more of an adult film as the young actors aged.

This is the first film where Dumbledore is now being played by Michael Gambon, after the death of original actor Richard Harris.  Gambon does step into the role well and becomes a great Dumbledore as the franchise progressed.

The Prisoner of Azkaban has some fantastic story twists that are difficult to see coming.  The way the third act is all weaved together is fun and works beautifully.

Gary Oldman packs a wallop into each scene, despite not having a lot of screen time.  This continued the ongoing mythology of the story without making it feel as if it were just a retread of what had come before.  David Thewlis was a great addition to the ensemble as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor Remus Lupin.

The introduction of the Dementors is creepy and, at times, frightening.  These creatures are clearly going to be an important creature moving forward in the franchise.  They provided a real threat to our protagonists and an amazing imagery with them.

Mentioning about the imagery, the visual style of this movie is just tremendous.  Everything from the Dementors to the cinematography to Buckbeak the hippogriff is just a visual masterpiece.

I enjoyed the cold open at the Dursley’s house.  I am not sure why Harry has to keep going back to these people.  He has a ton of money int he bank, couldn’t he rent a room from the Weasleys?  Or maybe stay at Hogwarts?  I just find this to be one of the weakest parts of the movie.  However, blowing Uncle Vernon’s (Richard Griffiths) sister Aunt Marge (Pam Ferris) up and having her float away was an early film highlight, as was the insane bus ride after.

The young actors have really grown into their roles.  At this point, the Harry Potter actors are capable of handling more adult and deeper themes and their performances now elevate the work around them.  Emma Watson, in particular, has become a strong actor and can handle more emotional worth.

Coming into The Prisoner of Azkaban, my memory was that this was the best Harry Potter movie.  Coming out of the re-watch, I still think it is the best Harry Potter movie of all.  I am interested to see if I still think it is the best after the EYG 8 Days of Potter end.

Day 2 of the EYG 8 Days of Potter has brought us the second film in the Harry Potter franchise with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) returns to Hogwarts to another mystery.  This time, there are mysterious attacks on students as the mythical Chamber of Secrets had apparently been opened.  Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) are attempting to solve the mystery before the danger costs them everything.

Chamber of Secrets is a solid film and I enjoyed the third act very much with Harry in the Chamber.  You can see improvements among the young actors in their performances from Sorcerer’s Stone.  There are some points in the film that are quite cheesy and is a negative to the film.  There are several points (the spiders, Hermione as a cat, the anagram, pixies etc) that I would have eliminated because they dragged the story.

Chamber of Secrets is very similar to the concepts of Sorcerer’s Stone.  It is a mysterious location within the school.  Harry, Ron and Hermione think the culprit is one of the “bad” guys (Stone= Snape, Chamber=Malfoy).  Harry sneaks around under the invisibility cloak.  Harry winds up in danger in the woods.  They discover the secret pathway.  They go down under the school.  Harry gets separated from his friends and heads on alone.  The villain is someone we do not expect.  Voldemort is trying to get his body back.  I am sure there are more as I was noticing these repetitions more this time through than I had before.

There are areas that are better than the original. There is considerably less exposition here.  We don’t need to just have so many people explaining stuff to us, which helps with the narrative.  The film is funnier and has much more action.  They are able to get into the actual main story much quicker this time and that helped with the pace of the film.  It is a long movie, but you do not feel its length because the pace is so well laid out.

The mystery is compelling and the story is nicely weaved together.  While the conclusion of what is going on may be a tad underwhelming and repetitive, the final confrontation with Harry and the Basilisk is an utter joy.

The tone of the film does stray into a little darker of territory with the introduction of Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs).  The Harry Potter franchise one that really goes darker the older these students get and as the story progresses.

I disliked Dobby (Toby Jones) a great deal for most of this movie.  The very end sequence with Dobby, Harry and Lucius is fire and shows you some amazing traits of the character of Harry Potter, but the early uses of Dobby were extremely dumb and felt like used simply for comedic effect.  I had terrible flashbacks to Jar Jar Binks watching Dobby.

Overall, I think the Chamber of Secrets takes the same basic formula as the Sorcerer’s Stone and improves upon it.  There are some really good moments in the film that overcome the weaknesses.  This is the final film in the franchise directed by Chris Columbus as Alfonso Cuarón takes over for the next installment.

I recently finished my James Bond re-watch and, to go along with the list of other movies to see this summer while at home, I have decided on the next franchise re-watch.  Beginning tonight, Doc’s Classic Movies Reviewed will feature the EYG 8 Days of Potter.

That means that the first film in the re-watch will be Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.  Based on the book by J.K. Rowling and directed by Chris Columbus, The Sorcerer’s Stone kicked off the franchise.

This is a good film, but, looking back on it, this film was short on story and long on world building and exposition.  It is understandable why there is so much explaining going on.  The film has to set up the mythology of Harry Potter, all of the students and teachers of Hogwarts, and artifacts, games and other details.  That is a tall order and certainly takes up plot time.

The Sorcerer’s Stone plot doesn’t really start taking place until well into the film and there were parts to the story that we not very important to this film.  Things that will play into future movies.  Again, it is a necessary evil.

Our young actors are another weakness in this film.  Don’t get me wrong, these children, in particular Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, grow into their parts and become considerably better actors.  This film, however, most of the child actors are, at best, average.  Emma Watson comes a long way as the franchise continues.

Daniel Radcliffe, however, was the best actor of the young ensemble and carries most of the film.  As the others grow in skill around him, he solidifies the film alongside the amazing cast assembled.  He was, perhaps, a perfect casting for Harry Potter.  Richard Harris as Dumbledore, Maggie Smith as McGonagall, the effervescent Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, and Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid anchor the young cast members with their skills and performances.

I remember the first time seeing this movie and thinking that this is like the new generation’s Wizard of Oz.  The magical nature of the film is wonderful and it clearly sets up for a great story moving forward.

This is probably the weakest of the Harry Potter films, but I can understand why.  It has to do a lot for the future of the franchise and it does that well, leading into the stronger stories ahead.

I have had a few instances recently of re-watching some films that, at first, I did not like, but upon the second watch, finding the film more enjoyable.  I wondered if that would continue by watching The Phantom.

Spoiler alert:  It did not.

The Phantom was horrendous.

It was actually way worse than I remembered it being.

The Phantom aka “The Ghost Who Walks,” secret identity of Kit Walker (Billy Zane), is the legendary, mythical hero of the jungle and he gets involved in a plot from businessman Xander Drax (Treat Williams) to uncover the magical Skulls of Touganda and claim the mystical power they control.  Kit’s old college flame Diana (Kristy Swanson) was involved too.  Oh and Catherine Zeta-Jones was a villainous sidekick for Drax, until she wasn’t.

The plot is an absolute mess.  There is no explanation of the plot.  Everybody just goes through the motions and people then drop some exposition moving along.

The dialogue is laughable.  Nobody talks like this.

It felt like a super hero version of an Indiana Jones movie, but really less intelligent or less fun or less well developed.  This makes the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull look like a considerably better movie of this genre.

This is way worse than I remembered.  It is truly a bad film.

A Goofy Movie was an animated Disney film based on the TV cartoon.  What happens when Goofy has a kid and has t be a parent?  Hijinks.

It is summer vacation and Max (Jason Marsden) has set up a date with his crush, Roxanne (Kellie Martin) to watch the broadcast of a concert together.  However, a phone call to his father Goofy (Bill Farmer) from the Principal (Wallace Shawn) puts Goofy into a panic.  Goofy decides to take his son fishing following the same path that his own father had done with him.

To cover the absence, Max tells Roxanne that he and his father were going to the live concert that they were going to watch on TV and that they were going to go on stage and dance with them at the end of the show.

There really isn’t much to the plot.  It honestly feels like an episode of any other TV show, just extended out to an hour and a half.  If you have ever watched a family comedy on TV, then you have seen the “twists” that happen here, just with that Goofy flair.

The music was catchy, but forgettable.  I just watched this not an hour ago, and I cannot recall any of the song titles or melodies.

The film does a good job of portraying adolescence and how the relationship can be between a father and his son.  It is not all sweetness.  Teens can be a nasty bunch and they are embarrassed at parents, no matter how much they may love them.  Goofy and Max have that relationship and we are exposed to the connection between them as the film moves on.

A Goofy Movie was fine.  The film would, most likely, be a big hit among the kids while the parents would not hate themselves for watching it.  It may not be a massive success, but it was far from a flop either.

I had heard about this movie on one of the movie talk shows that I listen to and I thought it was odd, but I had never known of this before.  It was referenced by the podcaster as one of his favorite movies ever and, again, I had never heard of it before.  So The Edge went on my list of films to see.

Billionaire Charles Morse (Anthony Hopkins) accompanied his model wife (Elle McPherson) on a shoot in Alaska.  Photographer Robert “Bob” Green (Alec Baldwin) and his assistant Stephen (Harold Perrineau) went in search of another local photographer.  The helicopter that carried them crashed and stranded the three men in the Alaskan wilderness.  Before long, they realize that they have been stalked by a man-killing Kodiak bear.

This action/survival tale had some definitive benefits to it.  First of all, Anthony Hopkins is a master actor and he can make nearly every silly or cheesy scene watchable, if not tense and exciting (Transformers: Last Knight notwithstanding).  Hopkins’ character is intelligent and observant, understanding the situation and finding ways in which to help them survive.

I wonder if this was on the resume for Harold Perrineau when he applied to be Michael on LOST (Waaaaaaaaalllllllt!) as he showed off his skills of running through the trees and navigating water and rivers.  There were a couple of scenes with Perrineau that were painful and extremely dramatic.

I do have to say that Charles Morse was probably too great of a person.  I truly respected his kindness and his heroic efforts, but I have to say there were a few moments that made me question what he does.  I am not sure I would have done the same thing making him the best among us.

However, I do love the fact that the movie highlights his intelligence as one of the key character traits of this man.  He is shown to be able to think on his feet and to plan out a strategy that will give him the best opportunity to survive, whether it be from the wilderness, the animals or the human component.

I did find it difficult to accept the film’s assertion that the bear was tracking them the whole time, but I have to say the confrontations with the bear made up for any issues I might have had with the narrative.

The Edge had some good action scenes, but they knew that the real elements of survival were not just built on the action.  The moments of character interaction were every bit as good as the action, if not better.  Except for the bear fights.  Those ruled.

One of the great pulp/comic strip characters of all time was featured in a 1990 movie with Warren Beatty.  Dick Tracy came out a year later than the Tim Burton 1989 Batman, but the films shared a definitive tone.

Police detective Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty) is out to bring down crime lord Big Boy Caprice (Al Pacino) and his variety of henchmen while trying to balance his relationship with dame Tess Trueheart (Glenne Headly).  Along the way, Dick helps out a street orphan, Kid (Charlie Korsmo).

When Big Boy kills Lips Manlis (Paul Sorvino), his nightclub’s singer Breathless Mahoney (Madonna) is an eye witness and Dick tries to get her to testify, bringing trouble right to his front door step.

Dick Tracy is an iconic cartoon strip and this film does an incredible job of bringing that comic strip to life.  The very feel of the city gives it life and, much like Gotham in Batman films, a character all unto its own.  The colors here make this different than Gotham and gives the movie its cartoon ambiance.

The characters are also extremely over the top cartoony which gives a flare to the film.  The ugly villains and the brightly colored police create a wonderful contraction.

The score does remind one of the Batman ’89 score.  Part of that reason was the scores for both movies were done by Danny Elfman.  There was a time that Dick Tracy was running along the rooftops that I actually thought they were using the actual Batman theme.

The cast of Dick Tracy is amazing.  Not only does Warren Beatty completely inhabit the body of the iconic detective, Al Pacino is utterly perfect as the enigmatic criminal.  Throw in roles for Dustin Hoffman, William Forsythe, Charles Durning, Mandy Patinkin, Kathy Bates, Dick Van Dyke, Catherine O’Hara, Estelle Parsons, James Caan, and Charles Fleischer.  It is an unbelievable excess of talent making up these characters, and many times unrecognizable characters.  You have Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman playing a character named Mumbles who, as his name says, just mumbles when he talks.

The story is not overly strong and it feels as if the film is disjointed like a comic strip, which may have been purposeful.  However, there is a nice reveal at the end of the third act, which is fairly solid by comparison to some of these types of films.

The best part of the movie is the relationship between Dick Tracy and the Kid.  The sweet connection between the sticky-fingered orphan and the hard-nosed and gruff cop works very well and you connect more to Dick Tracy by seeing him through the Kid’s eyes.  Charlie Korsmo, the actor who played Kid, had several big roles in the early 1990s including Hook and What About Bob?.  As an adult, Korsmo has become a successful lawyer and assistant professor of law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

This is about as well done as you could ask for when you try to bring Dick Tracy to life.  I found this even more interesting now than I did back when I first saw it.  Dick Tracy is a lot of fun.

When I saw The Green Hornet for the first time in theaters in 2011, I came out of the film hating it.  I just watched it for a second time on Netflix and I did not hate it near as much as I did the first time.  Mind you, it is not a good movie, but the flaws did not seem to bother me as much this time as it did then.

I can’t stop to think of why that is.  It is not that the movie is different from the time I saw it back in 2011.  Perhaps I like Seth Rogen more now than I did then.  He typically falls into the category of comedic actor that is too loud and whose characters are all basically the same.  In my head, I compare Rogen to comedic actors such as Kevin Hart, Adam Sandler, Zach Galifianakis etc.  That style just seems to wear on me.  Throw in the drug humor and most movies with Rogen in it, I consider iffy.

Still, he has done some better work over the last few years, featuring some films that I have dug.  Long Shot, Steve Jobs, The Disaster Artist are a few of the projects that may have helped me see Seth Rogen in a different light.  He is funny too, when he stays in line and keeps control.

So with a solid character, Seth Rogen’s The Green Hornet was less offensive as I found it then.  He was still too loud and the story beats were sadly predictable, but I found this more acceptable than before.

Part of that was Kato (Jay Chou), who is played to perfection here.  I am sure that I mentioned in a previous review all those years ago that Kato was the standout of the film.  He was this again.  I have always been a sidekick fan (I actually preferred Robin to Batman growing up) and I loved the contradiction between Kato and Britt Reid (Set Rogen).  Kato appeared to be great at everything while Britt was a loser wasting his life away in senseless partying.

However, when Britt’s father (Tom Wilkinson) dies, leaving his media empire to his son, Britt takes his father’s legacy in a diverging path.

The whole Green Hornet is pretending to be a bad guy to do good is an iconic part of the character and is done reasonably well here.  I did like how the film touched upon how Britt felt guilt over the response to the Hornet’s activity by the criminal underworld.  I would have liked more character development like that.

The whole Kato and Britt break up over Lenore (Cameron Diaz) was tired and dull, as was the physical fight between the two of them.  The third act was a gigantic mess with silly and improbable situations.  I kept wondering if there was any injuries or deaths from the bystanders here or was the car chases and gun fights just conveniently missing them.

There were some funny bits in the film too.  The time when Britt accidentally shoots himself with the Hornet gas and he is out for a week and a half was quite clever.

I go back and forth with Christoph Waltz as the villain Chudnofsky.  On one hand, I did not find him to be a strong villain, but that could be why he was as he was.  His own self image led to his grab of power and his subsequent mental instability.    When pushed by someone he could not control in the Green Hornet, Chudnofsky responded by diving deeper into his insecurities to become “Bloodnofsky” and start donning more of a super villain type facade with red attire and themed actions.  The movie does not go into this enough, but I think there is a fascinating concept at work here.

The Green Hornet has a lot of problems and is considered a failure, despite making a modest amount of money worldwide.  I did not hate it near as much as I once did, but it is a film that could sting you.

This was a film that I had not seen before and it felt as if it should be right up my alley.  I even named a character in my book Psybolt Unleashed after Napoleon Dynamite.  The movie came up in discussion with some friends earlier this week, so it went on the list.

I have to say… it was okay.

I was not blown away by it.  It was sweet and had some funny parts to it.  It is certainly quirky and unlike most movies.

Napoleon (Jon Heder) has a strange life, with a strange family.  He is totally deadpan and downright odd, and he decides to help his best friend Pedro (Efren Ramirez) in an election for high school class president against mean girl Summer (Haylie Duff).  As this is going on, Napoleon continues his weird world including trying to interact with his hopeful girlfriend, manage his jerk of an uncle (Jon Gries) and learn to dance.

There was a ton of awkwardness with many scenes in the film, an obvious conscious decision from the filmmakers as there are shots that linger on actors, bringing the feeling of uncomfortableness to everyone.

However, there is no doubt that this is an original idea and the execution is unlike much of anything we have seen before.  It makes one think of films of Wes Anderson.

Jon Heder is fascinating as Napoleon Dynamite.  His performance is very strong as you never know what to expect from the character.  And every weird thing he does feels natural for Napoleon.

Napoleon Dynamite as a cult classic certainly makes sense, as I can see why some may find it an unwanted experience.  I thought it was fine.