I went to see Up in 3D tonight, one day earlier than expected due to a rare burst of spontaneity, and it was wicked awesome, but I will write more about that (and the other animated films I have seen/will see this week) another time.

What I really wanted to say was – the Barbican cinema, which is where we saw it, is 2 storeys underground and has no reception.

I can’t be the only one who thinks this is a genius way of terminating phone-pest behaviour during movies? Because it really bothers me. Texting and that buzzy vibrating noise are massive annoyances (let’s not even get started on actual phone ringing, and worse still, people picking it up and going “I’m in a movie!!” in what they think is a hushed tone but actually isn’t). I just think that unless you are a massively important VIP, in which case you can afford a private viewing of said film, there is no reason why anyone needs to use their phone during a movie.

So why is it not more common to just build cinemas with no reception? Singapore, take note!

Given that I left the cinema practically slack-jawed in awe, and almost the whole of the film in some kind of rapture, this may not be tremendously objective… but I’ll try my best.

On the whole, I really, really liked HBP. I thought it was the best of the movies so far, and in order to assess this opinion I went home and re-watched PoA, my previous favourite, to see how they stacked up against each other. I definitely need to see HBP again before giving a definitive conclusion, but at this point I have to say that, given PoA had such a strong book as its base and HBP doesn’t, it is remarkable how good the latter movie is. And I think it is as good as, if not better, than the PoA movie.

I should preface this with a caveat that I’ve only read HBP once, when it first came out. I can’t remember a lot of things about the book, so missing things and niggly details didn’t bug me so much. And I did not go in expecting it to be anything like the book. If you do, you WILL be disappointed! If you’re prepared for something that departs significantly but still manages to capture the essence of the book and stands in its own right as a cracking good movie, you’ll enjoy it a lot more. Detailed review of things I liked and didn’t like below!

WARNING: HERE BE SPOILERS.

DO NOT READ!

…if you haven’t seen the film and don’t want to be spoiled. It’s safely cut for everyone reading this here directly, but if you’re reading this in Google Reader, beware.