heidi | (no subject)

The Daily Telegraph sent two reviewers to GoF, and the 14 year old writer who did one of the reviews liked it well enough, so that's not really what I'm just flaberghasted by today. here's the review by some 20something chick, which began:

I thought I knew what to expect. A couple of hours of child wizards casting spells, some japery involving flying broomsticks, a few owls and maybe some humorous interludes with a green elf. What I got was a two-and-a-half hour monster and death fest.

Now, with a first paragraph like that, do you think that woman has read the book? Or five? Or six?
[Poll #606777]
So then the rest of the review

Even before the opening credits, some poor old caretaker has been murdered by an enormous man-eating snake in what looks like the corridor of the Bates' Motel. Soon, a gang of men wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods are throwing flames about and making huge skulls appear from nowhere.

If Harry isn't sprouting giant gills and webbed feet to save himself from drowning, then he's being chased to the death by a winged dragon or speared by pitchfork-wielding mermaids.

In the final scenes, Timothy Spall cuts off his own hand for no particular reason, lobs it into a steaming cauldron and watches nonchalantly as a slime-covered foetal figure unfurls in the form of Lord Voldemort.

It turns out to be Ralph Fiennes, made up to look like a cross between Keith Flint in The Prodigy videos and Edvard Munch's The Scream.

It was unutterably terrifying. And there wasn't a green elf in sight.

I'll ask the question again, slightly differently this time:
[Poll #606778]
So, should this be used as a textbook example of How Not To Review?

* and yes, that was supposed to be BBQ in the last line of the second poll. Damn you, LJ, and your bar on editing polls!

ETA: You know, I think I found something the whole fandom can come together about. Elizabeth Day is galactically stupid!