Harry Potter

There is no doubt that the Harry Potter series is one of the greatest pieces of fictional writing we'll probably see in our lifetime, it is immensely popular (biggest understatement ever?) and has captured an audience from primary school kids, through to moody teenagers, right up to mums and grans. It has a widespread appeal like nothing I've seen before and everyone I know who likes it, really likes it. They have all the books, they want to dress up as Gandalf, go and see the midnight viewing when it comes out at the cinema and have 3 copies of each of the DVDs. It's worse than how I was as a teenager supporting Cambridge United, using the word obsession wouldn't be doing it justice.

I've never (drinking game anyone?) read any of the books or gone out of my way to watch any of the films. I did briefly start to read one of the books at school because a girl I fancied was a Hazza geek (it didn't work), but that's a different story. But being the loving boyfriend that I am, I made an attempt to get on board with the whole Harry Potter thing for the benefit of my girlfriend, it was not long before the Deathly Hallows movie was about to come out. I agreed to watch all the movies building up to it and find out who was who so that I wouldn't be completely lost when I took her to see the final movie. I wasn't completely bored but not completely enthralled either. There is no doubting they are good movies and have been done extremely well, but they are totally aimed at the Harry Potter geek. I'd go as far to say if you aren't Harry Potter obsessed, it's not going to be a pleasant viewing experience. I'm not a movie critic, but Daniel Radcliffe's acting is pretty cardboard. Never has someone got so lucky looking a bit like an illustration, it's painful to watch. He gets better as the movies go on, but there are some horrible cringe moments where you can see a lot of Daniel and not a lot of Harry.

The creators of the movie have almost put themselves in a win win situation, they already have a huge fan base salivating over the prospect of each new movie, they already have a storyline and people flocking to watch it despite knowing exactly how each one ends and all of them defend each shortcoming from the film to the hilt. No Harry Potter fan will hear a bad word against any of the movies. My girlfriend is one of the Harry Potter mega geeks and I have no problem with that, but when I went to watch the last film and came away disappointed that I'd only seen the first half (I genuinely didn't know it was in 2 parts), it was greeted with shock and amazement. What she and most Harry Potter fans don't understand is, I have no idea how it ends! For all I know Harry Potter wakes up and it was all a bad dream at the end of Part 2. I was gutted that after being gripped by what was admittedly a brilliant first part, I'd have to wait months to see how it ended. What sort of deluded movie watcher goes away happy about that?! Only a Harry Potter fan.

I've tried saying this to a group of her friends who are all just as obsessed, if you could see some of the reactions I get it's almost as if I've gone and slapped their grandmothers round the face with my knob. How dare I question the great J K Rowling and how her fine fiction has been depicted? What do I mean she is taking advantage of good, faithful Harry Potter fans? Of course the last book is too long to condense into a single movie, no way should there have been any sort of reward for going to see both movies at the cinema, of course you're going to buy the DVD box set afterwards. One of my girlfriends friends even said she was disappointed that they hadn't played the other SEVEN movies in the week or so leading upto Deathly Hallows Part 2! She would have gone to see them all, AGAIN! I don't know how you've done it J K, but in movie making terms you're essentially printing money. I dare say most Harry Potter fans will have said exactly the same and gone to every movie again before seeing the last half a film.

Sorry Harry Potter fans, but you're all mugs. What's worse is, you all seem to enjoy being mugs and won't hear otherwise. I think it's called ignorant bliss? I've tried to be reasonable with you, I've tried to subtly explain why I think you're being taken advantage of, but the only response I've had is gasps of horror and somehow it's me that is being stupid for not jumping on the bandwagon! I was asked if I would be going to Part 2 of the last film with my girlfriend, if I could remember what had happened in Part 1 I would of been tempted as I'm sure it's going to be epic. Maybe I should have gone to see Part 1 a couple of times to get in the real Potter spirit of things? If you haven't read each of the books 32 times over, going to see the films is pointless. Even my Harry Potter geek girlfriend will concede that there are parts to the films that don't make sense without having read the books. Bravo J K Rowling, you really can't lose here.

EDIT: A quick Google search tells me that out of the whole Harry Potter series of movies, not a single Oscar has been won. Surely not, after 10 years and 7 movies? Well it was never going to be for the acting, was it? Try argue with that one Hazza geeks.