Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows (Part 1)
It’s hard to believe that after all these years it’s finally coming to an end. Still, there’s time enough though for Harry to gather the gang together, hop onto the broomstick and head out on a final adventure to stop the evil Lord Voldemort. The plot involves the gathering of some kind of mystical artefacts but by now all that magic stuff is really secondary to the interaction of the characters and their relationships. You’ve probably read the books but I won’t indulge in any spoilering. Also not having read the books myself I might find this difficult. You may notice that this is billed as part 1 (of 2) with the final book being split into two separate films. Let’s hope the screenwriters can nail the script and come up with two distinct narratives rather than one long film split into two parts.
Monsters
What’s that coming over the hill? Writer-Director Gareth Edwards with a low budget monster movie generating big buzz. The concept is ingenious taking the traditional idea of the monster movie and spinning it on its head by instead showing the aftermath of the monster attack. It follows a journalist and a scared tourist travelling through the infected zone of Mexico toward the American border. Don’t expect monster over-kill (Edwards created the Visual Effects in his bedroom) but instead look for a road movie love story shot in an ultra gritty realistic fashion with undertones of political commentary on wars of attrition being carried out against non-space squid opponents.
Let Me In
Alarm bells were ringing loud when the announcement was made that Hammer Films were remaking Swedish modern horror classic Let The Right One In. These became almost deafening when the studio stated they would be trying to make it more accessible for an American audience. Still, early reviews of Matt Reeves’ (Cloverfield) have me erring on the side of the cautiously optimistic. The casting is quite sublime with Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road) and Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass) stepping into the lead roles with the creepy spirit and shocking ambiguity of the original seeming to be intact. Moving the story from the bleak isolation of Stockholm to New Mexico might make it more difficult to generate the same climate of fear but it seems Reeves has combated this by upping the gore quotient. As far as remakes go it looks like it at least deserves an opportunity even if measuring up to the original may be beyond its grasp.
