A Somewhat Late-In-The-Day Review

Way back when, in a bygone age, when kids were doing normal kids' stuff, like playing Playstation and Gameboy, and trading Pokémon, a brand new craze was sweeping the nation in the form of these clumps of pocket-sized paper, bound in cardboard and full of words, that made sentences, that made paragraphs, pages, chapters and, when taken in their entirety, whole stories!

Many, including myself, saw it as a bit of a fad, but one of these clumps in particular caused it to catch on.  It was about a scrawny little orphan with bad hair, living with his aunt and uncle, who finds out he's destined to be a great magician, and with the help of a doddery old man and a pair of companions - a stuck-up little princess a little more gung-ho than she seems, and a pragmatic boy just out for the easy life (though hiding a brave, loyal heart) - he takes on a powerful dark lord and ultimately triumphs through a mixture of ingenuity, luck and trusting in himself.

And that story was called Star Wars: A New Hope.

Or, at least, the remastered, cinematic release was: the papery version was titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (I assume for copyright reasons).

Two decades, a few more books, an entire film franchise, a theme park and now a stage production later (as well as a pound or two flooding the bank account of its author), and the thing is such a British institution, I figured it was about time I saw what all the fuss was about.

This isn't the first time I've picked up a Harry Potter.  I did give it a try back when it was just becoming a thing, but I failed to get beyond the first two pages.  When I was the target age for Potter, I was reading Roald Dahl, and I found Rowling's writing to be a bit too amateurish and patronising in comparison, but I was still a precocious, pretentious, high-strung teenager at the time, so what did I know?

Now that I'm a precocious, pretentious, high-strung adult, I find it easier to detach myself from those earlier misgivings and (paradoxically) appreciate her style for the audience it's aimed at.  In that, I find myself wishing Rowling had picked up her pen ten years earlier, though I also question whether her, frankly, higher-brow stories would have distracted me from the whimsical ease of The Witches, The BFG, George's Marvellous Medicine and The Twits.

The big problem with reviewing this now, of course, is it is such a part of our social identity, it's impossible to view it through the eyes of someone introduced to this world for the first time.  The Hogwarts Express left me at the station, with my nose in a copy of The Hobbit, long ago, and I've only ever been aware of it on the periphery; observing its growing popularity, cultural integration, and critical and public acclaim as one would the impact of the Tomb Raider franchise from the perspective of someone who believes entertainment peeked around the time of E.T., and even I was well aware of what 'Muggle', 'Golden Snitch' and 'The Boy Who Lived' meant.

Still, outside of someone twice my age, who thinks fantasy's for five year-olds, I'm about as detached and objective as it gets, so here goes...

It's rather good.

I'm not going to bother regurgitating the plot as those who don't already know are either too young to be reading this (go to bed!), too old to care or haven't yet evolved far enough up the ladder to understand the concept of language; suffice to say, these days at least, it isn't particularly original.  However, it is worth noting that, back in 1997, the concept of a child of destiny taken from his mundane, everyday existence to learn about his true power at a school for other gifted youngsters was a tad rare (lest it was run by a bald, crippled mind-reader with severe split-personality issues).

The writing itself is breezy and whimsical, though while clearly aimed mainly at 8-12 year-olds, there's enough colour, depth and darkness to engage older readers.  It moves at a good pace, has enough twists to keep the narrative involving, and is set in a well-constructed universe just close enough to reality to be relatable, while still incorporating every fantasy trope under the sun.  In fact, one of the biggest strengths of the novel is how many of these tropes are effortlessly subverted by their mere presence in this particular world; whether it be giants getting tipsy with goblins in their favourite local, or the arrival of ancient, mystical centaurs getting on a character's nerves because they're too distracted by the state of the planets to answer a simple question.

What I found most surprising was how well the ending worked.  It has been many years since I watched the film, and I wasn't particularly engaged with it when I did, but I do remember the ending encompassing all of my worst fears about the franchise.

*SPOILER ALERT* (for the ancient cave dwellers among you who might not know)
After going through a bunch of trials to reach the final confrontation, Harry looks in a mirror, finds he actually has the plot's MacGuffin in his pocket, and the bad-guy dissolves on contact with our 'hero' because of his love for his parents.

Blech!

I found it so sickeningly saccharine and toothless, any vague interest that may have lingered to see how this thing played itself out was wiped clean from my mind.

I can't say whether my reaction was due to my already dismissive attitude and fleeting interest at the time, or simply poor film-making (I'd have to re-watch it to find out), but I found that same ending as played out in the book far more satisfying.  As far as I recall, the final confrontation in the book is far more drawn-out and graphic than it was in the film, ramping up the excitement, as well as giving a stronger sense of catharsis when it was all over.  And Dumbledore's explanation for why everything played out as it did seemed to make more sense, and didn't feel at all (or as much) like a Dues Ex Machina ending, as the film's did.

My one concern about the series going forward is the length of each subsequent novel.  Philosopher's Stone was a good length; packed with plenty of goings on, without feeling bloated or outstaying its welcome.  Before the series reaches its conclusion, the individual novels grow to Lord of the Rings scale, and I struggle to imagine these characters engaging me for so long a stretch in a single story.

Still, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed book 1, so I now head into the rest of the series with an open mind.

Hate to Say I Told You So

It has been well established by now by every review out there - whether positive or negative (and I’ve seen plenty of both) - that Suicide Squad is a mess.  Personally, I had fun with it, but the issues are far too jarring for me to recommend it, or argue with anyone who thought it was utter dog-shit.

The issues are glaring from the off, with the film opening with not one, but two scenes of Amanda Waller explaining her plan to a room of military officials; with the first interspersed with a few quick character bios almost as clumsy and forced as Batman’s Justice League email in BvS.  The trailer featured a line from Rick Flag describing the characters - “Shoots people; burns people; eats people… Crazy person” - that does a far better job of establishing the characters than the opening ten minutes of the actual film.

This clumsiness is prevalent throughout film, with poorly placed and repetitive flashbacks, nonsensical character beats there purely for the sake of plot movement, lazy exposition, terrible pacing...and so on (it’s like a bad Arrow episode).

The list of problems is long and, as I said, already well-established, but I’d like to highlight one in particular.  It’s something I’ve previously mentioned, that I’ve been concerned about since the film was first announced, and a prime example of which we saw in BvS: Who are these people?

Way back in the days when The Dark Knight had just been released, and Marvel’s Avengers experiment was just starting to come together, Warner Bros. announced they would be making a Justice League movie: not kicking off a Justice League cinematic universe - establishing the characters and the world they inhabit - but jumping straight in with Justice League, complete with new versions of all your favourite characters.

It was a terrible idea, and it wasn’t long before internet backlash seemingly made WB see sense, shelve the project and instead allow Christopher Nolan to finish off his Dark Knight trilogy, before bringing him on to oversee a new Superman film that would set the stage for the rest of the Justice League, just as Iron Man did for the Avengers.

Unfortunately, under the hamfisted fan-boy direction of Zack Snyder - that had served him and us surprisingly well on Watchman and 300 - Man of Steel was a dour, tedious, inconsistent, underwhelming mess.

Rather than scratch this off as a false start and hope for better from new Wonder Woman, Flash and Aquaman origins, WB panicked and jumped straight ahead with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

And we all know how that turned out.

One of the few highlights (and possibly the biggest surprise) of BvS was Ben Affleck as Batman - contrary to fan-boy fears the world over (including my own), he proved a good fit for the roles - but that didn’t mean the character himself wasn’t weakly established and poorly represented.  This was a bitter, angry Batman, pushing his violent nature to the extreme, to the point of no longer caring whether he kills.  In one scene, we’re shown a Robin suit, apparently graffitied by the Joker, suggesting Batman’s anger and bitterness stem from the death of the Boy Wonder, as in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns - an idea confirmed (to some extent) by the presence of the anti-Superman Batsuit from said book - but even in that, when Batman is at his most detached, desperate and willfully violent, he never crosses that line.

Not that you can’t have Batman killing people - if anything, showing the Dark Knight pushed over the edge to a point where he’s perfectly willing to break his one golden rule is an interesting piece of character development - but the issue in BvS is it is not shown.  Yes, we’re given a glimpse of the reason behind his mindset, but how much did that event really change him?  Has this always been a more violent Batman?  Was he closer to Tim Burton’s version, Joel Schumacher’s or Christopher Nolan’s?  Did Robin’s apparent death push him just an inch too far, or completely flip his personality?

The same is true for every character in Suicide Squad.  Amanda Waller calls them ‘The worst of the worst’, but that doesn’t hold up.  All we see of them in the movie is Deadshot is an assassin-for-hire who loves his daughter, and never kills women or children, Killer Croc lives in the sewers, and seemingly only attacks people who attack him, El Diablo is a pacifist,Captain Boomerang is a bank robber and Harley Quinn is a mentally-ill gymnast with Stockholm syndrome.  Hardly the worst humanity has to offer.

In fact, other than Enchantress - an evil spirit awakened from a 2,000 year imprisonment, so understanderbly miffed - the only character who truly shows themselves to be a cold, calculating sociopath is Waller.

The most glaring example of this lack of background, however, is Jared Leto’s much-touted Joker.  After all of the behind-the-scenes reports of how scarily ‘method’ he got with the role, the Joker’s entire on-screen character is that of a violent, but strategic gang boss with a weird growl and an obsession with Quinn.  The elements are all there for this to be an interesting new take on the character - how did he establish himself?  what’s he done to earn his reputation?  why is he so obsessed with Quinn far beyond the simple pleasure the character’s previously taken in having a loyal attractive pet around to play with and abuse as he fancies? - but we get none of this, and as a result, he’s little more than a caricature.

Leto has stated that a lot of his scenes wound up on the cutting-room floor, but no matter what’s in them, I struggle to see how a few deleted scenes would cover the gaping holes in the character.

Again, this isn’t just an issue with Suicide Squad.  We’re now three movies into the DC Cinematic Universe, and the only character with a true origin story is the one character who, not only everyone knows - comic-book fan or not - but whose entire character relies on being consistent and immovable.  In other words, the only character in this whole enterprise who doesn’t need an origin story.*

*I realise we also get Batman’s (wholly unnecessary by now) origin story, but that’s just

why he became Batman, not what turned him into this version of Batman.

In WB’s rush to catch up with Marvel, they’ve completely missed what has made the MCU so successful: namely the balance struck between staying true to the characters’ comic-book origins, while making them accessible enough to a new, cinema-going audience.

That said, at least Suicide Squad has added a sorely-lacking element of fun to the franchise.