How to stop the end of the world

   

  M. Night Shyamalan's Knock at the Cabin is based on a Paul G. Tremblay novel entitled The Cabin at the End of the World. Shyamalan's awkward transformation of Tremblay's title indicates what goes wrong with a potentially interesting movie.

   Not content to allow the audience to draw its own conclusions -- as the novel did -- Shyamalan steeps the story's conclusion in the kind of face-value thinking that undermines the screenplay’s stabs at ambiguity.

  Knock at the Cabin centers on two gay dads (Ben Aldridge and Jonathan Groff) who have taken their adopted Chinese daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) on vacation to a cabin in Pennsylvania.

    If an isolated setting in the woods didn't already signal trouble to anyone who has ever seen a movie, Herdis Stefansdottir's groaning score further tips Shyamalan's hand: A horror scenario involving home invasion will be flavored with quasi-religious suggestion.  

   It doesn't take long for four strangers to force their way into the cabin, carrying ominous looking homemade tools that bear little resemblance to anything available at a local hardware store. 

    Shyamalan gives us a modern version of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, harbingers of punishing global judgment: Dave Bautista's Leonard, Nikki Amuka-Bird's Sabrina, Rupert Grint's Redmond, and Abby Quinn's Adriane.

    A massive hulk of a man, Bautista's Leonard emerges as the stand-out character. In an early scene that's both lyrical and creepy, Leonard meets Wen. We wonder whether he might be the screen's latest serial killer.

   Instead, Leonard turns out to be a bespectacled second-grade teacher who speaks with alarming sincerity about his "mission." 

    He insists that he and his cohorts have had visions. They've been instructed to find this particular cabin so that global catastrophe can be averted. Only one act will stave off devastation. One of the family members must be killed by the others. 

    Are we watching a hoax perpetrated by four brainwashed strangers who we’re told met on-line or is this the real deal, the last days of humanity? 

    The home invaders have convinced themselves that their visions are real. They don't like what they've been sent to do but insist they have no choice. They implore the two dads to take action. When the dads refuse, the invaders kill one of their number and the global devastation begins.

    Leonard turns on the TV, and Shyamalan shows snippets of apocalyptic destruction. Tsunamis vanquish Hawaii. Planes fall from the sky.  

    Putting a child in danger and using the prospect of human sacrifice to drive the plot give the movie a warped undertow that's as distasteful as it is unnerving. For the most of the movie, the two dads remain tied to chairs.

     If a drama such as this is to work, we probably should be encouraged to ask ourselves what we’d do if faced with such a terrible choice. That level of involvement would have required a sense of identification Knock at the Cabin seldom delivers.

   Shyamalan creates tension as the dads try to find a way out of a horrible situation. But watching characters we hardly know struggle their way through the movie's reductive moral dilemma doesn't make it easy for us to find a way in.

Bye 'Harry!' You've made a grand exit

The final Harry Potter film brings the series to a memorable, exciting conclusion.

A decade ago, I didn’t know a horcrux from a ham hock, and Hogwarts sounded like an obscure affliction of the skin that no one willingly would discuss in mixed company. That was then.

Now I know that seven horcruxes had to be destroyed before Harry's epic encounter with evil Lord Voldemort. Like gazillions of others, I’ve been Potterized – at least enough to realize that you never want to meet a Death Eater in a dark alley, that Quiddich is played with broomsticks and that author J.K. Rowling has an undeniable talent for inventing words.

If you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, you are part of the fringe that has managed to escape Pottermania, and need read no further.

The rest of you should know that the big-screen series adapted from Rowling’s amazingly popular books has resulted in some good movies, at least one so-so movie and an overall achievement that deserves a hearty round of applause.

Fans can rest assured that director David Yates has brought the series to a dark, exciting conclusion with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Part 1 seemed to be marking time, holding us at bay until the final battle could be joined, which means Part 2 (stay with me here) is really the third act of Part 1.

That makes the entire movie into a kind of grand finale, resulting from Warner Bros.' decision to split the final Potter book in two.

It’s finally time for Harry, Hermione and Ron to call a halt to Voldemort’s nefarious plans, a situation that allows the filmmakers to unleash a torrent of special effects – from chalices that multiply on their own in an underground vault to zap-zapping wand fights that (alas) always remind me of something out of an old Flash Gordon serial.

Screenwriter Steve Kloves brings the proceedings to an operatic conclusion that's beautifully complemented by composer Alexandre Desplat’s ominous score. There's a near-majestic quality to some of the events in Part 2. A sequence in Gringotts Bank -- with goblins hunched over thick ledgers -- is a triumph of imaginative design.

Much of the series' success involves the fact that the Potter cast has remained in tact, save for the passing of Richard Harris, who originally played Dumbledore. This consistency has allowed us the pleasure of watching the movie’s three stars – Daniel Radcliffe (Harry), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) and Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) – grow into young adulthood.

In this action-oriented conclusion, little remains to be revealed about our stalwart trio; they’re fulfilling the destinies that Rowling set out for them.

Casting – not only in the main roles, but also in the supporting roles – remains pitch perfect. Ralph Fiennes imbues Voldemort with a sinister purity that’s truly unnerving. Michael Gambon (as Dumbledore), Robbie Coltrane (as Hagrid), Maggie Smith (as professor McGonagall) all return, as does Alan Rickman, who plays Severus Snape. If Rickman wanted to prolong his screen time, he did a good job: Like someone giving a master class in enunciation, he stretches every syllable to the breaking point. Ciaran Hinds joins the fray as Dumbledore’s brother. And, yes it would be something to see a cast of this caliber in a non-Potter movie – and I haven’t even mentioned Helena Bonham Carter, Julie Walters, David Thewlis.

A word, if I may, about 3-D. This edition is available in 3-D. The 3-D is by no means awful, but cinematographer Eduardo Serra’s darkly hued images seemed even darker when viewed through 3-D glasses, nicely shaped to replicate Harry’s trademark specs.

Now, if you’re tempted to let your mind wander en route to the climactic battle, don’t fret. You will be snapped back into attention as Harry faces Voldemort in a battle that produces so much rubble, it must have forced Hogwarts to embark on a major rebuilding campaign.

Not wanting to leave us trembling from all the unleashed fury, Yates includes Rowling’s epilogue, which takes us 19 years past the final battle and allows for an appropriate goodbye to characters that have become part of pop-cultural consciousness.

Harry, Hermione and Ron have matured over the course of a decade, as has much of the Potter audience. And although I’m not a Potter zealot, I admit that there’s something undeniably satisfying about having gotten through a tumultuous decade with characters that first reached the screen a couple of months after Sept. 11, and remained to see us through.

For its most ardent fans, Harry Potter has been a series to grow up with – not grow out of, which partly explains why they love it so much and why it has been such a unique success: on the page and in this smartly executed final chapter.

Harry Potter's long march toward a finale

If you're a fan, you probably think 2 hours and 26 minutes of Deathly Hallows is just right. The rest of us would have preferred a little pruning.

The curtain finally has begun to fall on the Harry Potter series, drawing a dark veil over the story of the young wizard. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 has a forbidding feel that settles over the story like an ominous fog.

But (with me there's usually a but) there's only so much time one productively can wander in a fog. The next-to-the-last Potter movie - J. K. Rowling's final Potter book has been broken into two parts for the screen -- amounts to an awfully long build-up to a finale that's bound to surpass it, if only because it will once and for all settle the battle between Harry and the evil Lord Voldemort.

This 2-hour and 26 minute helping of Harry interruptus features action, dry stretches and nuances that probably will elude those who haven't immersed themselves in the books. Of course, Potter enthusiasts are so many in number, they have made the series the most financially lucrative in movie history, and probably don't give a hoot what the rest of us think.

Say this, the Potter movies have provided a well-deserved payday for some brilliant actors. The opening scenes of this edition benefit from the presence of Bill Nighy (as Rufus Scrimgeour, Minister of Magic) and Brendan Gleeson (as Alastor Mad-Eye Moody), two actors who can't be overwhelmed by the abundant if slightly repetitive special effects that director David Yates applies to the proceedings.

Is it me or did the numerous wand fights in this edition bear an unfortunate resemblance to old-fashioned gunfights?

The movie opens in a climate of fear and apprehension. Dealing from a position of strength, Lord Voldemort and his army of Death Eaters are on the verge of triumph. Can they be stopped? Will Harry find the Horcruxes? Has anyone got a glossary?

Yes, there are amazing scenes. An early-picture meeting at Voldemort's retreat plays like a board meeting presided over by an abusive chairman, and gives Ralph Fiennes, as Voldemort, a little noseless face time. A late-picture bit of animation - the crucial Tale of the Three Brothers - ranks among the finest set pieces of the entire series. The use of Nick Cave's song, O Children, allows Harry and Hermione to share a moment of dance.

The trio that has carried the series deserves our appreciation. Daniel Radcliffe makes a convincing Harry even now that he's beginning to show traces of five o'clock shadow. Rupert Grint retains the spark that makes Ron Weasley appealling, although his character has begun to vent jealousies about what he perceives as a developing romance between Harry and Hermione. And Emma Watson has grown into a Hermione whose girlish steadfastness has begun to show signs of womanly assertiveness.

Relations among the trio hit a rough patch in an overly long segment in which Harry, Hermione and Ron wander through dense forests or camp on a rocky cliff in a tent that looks small from the outside, but expands once its inhabitants have entered. Why not? This is, after all, a J.K. Rowling universe. Magic rules.

Reaction to Hallows may boil down to whether one is a zealous fan who regards Rowling's work as holy writ. If you are one of those, you may lament some of screenwriter Steven Kloves' excisions. Kloves does, however, weave in emotionally charged plot business involving two elves, Kreacher and Dobby, as well as enough plot currents to breed exhaustion in readers were I to make an attempt to recount them. All I'll say is that I would have welcomed more pruning.

My wife told me she overhead a telling comment in the women's restroom after the preview screening. "At the rate this was going, I thought we'd be here until midnight," said a woman who evidently knew precisely how much of the story was still to come and who must have momentarily forgotten that Warner Bros. had opted to split Rowling's final Potter book in two.
Another friend said he found this edition to be action-packed, a description that did not jibe with my impression.I felt the gathering of forces that should lead to a smashing finale, but too often thought the movie was dragging its feet.

For that finale, we must wait until next summer, when - as another fan assured me - we'll see the payoff of much of what transpired in Part 1. I hope she's right. Although it's well crafted, I couldn't shake the sense that Hallows, Part I is -- at least a little -- the cinematic equivalent of spending 40 years in the desert without reaching the Promised Land.

I left the theater trying to sort out some of the movie' s many details, cataloging the parts of the movie I found impressive and harboring one overriding thought, "For heaven's sake, let's get on with it."