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My review of Half-Blood Prince
I went to see the movie with the usual pair of friends that I've seen every HP movie with starting from Prisoner of Azkaban. Friend A is a big HP fan like me (though not a slasher), and Friend B is not really a fan and has never read the books, although he has seen the movies. This actually helps to give me a good perspective on the movies from both a fan and a non-fan's POV.
Ever since I was extremely disappointed by PoA cutting out all my favorite scenes, I've lowered my expectations for the following movies considerably. As I said in my pre-review on Snapedom, "If it doesn't completely suck, I'll be satisfied."
This movie, I am happy to say, did not suck. It was entertaining, and I felt that it moved at a pretty good pace, considering the length. When we left the theater, I was surprised to see that we had been in there for nearly 3 hours. That said, as with the previous movies, it did feel a little bit like the Cliff Notes version of the book, since out of necessity, a good bit of the book had to be trimmed, or the movie would be 6 hours long.
Jim Broadbent was wonderful as Slughorn. I didn't really like Slughorn in the book, but Broadbent was so charismatic that I found myself liking him a lot more in the movie. His amorality still comes through, but I couldn't help being charmed by him even though I could clearly see his faults. And the crucial scene where he gets drunk with Hagrid I thought was really well done, with the humorous story about his goldfish Francis turning into a very poignant moment when he reveals that Francis was a gift from Lily, and the magically created fish disappeared on the night that she died. As
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red_day_dawning said in her review, I could see this version of Slughorn returning to fight in the Battle of Hogwarts in DH. I never quite bought it in the book, that Slughorn would have enough courage to return, but movie-Slughorn convinced me that he possessed enough compassion and guilt to finally do the right thing and step up to protect his students.The romance was not as atrocious as I thought it would be. The whole Won-won/Lavender thing was nauseating, but intentionally and humorously so. I laughed in sympathy when Hermione said, "Excuse me while I go vomit" after watching those two. The kiss between Ginny and Harry was handled better here than in the book, I thought, in a more private moment, although Friend A thought it was the corniest love scene ever. After the movie, I told my friends that I wished they had gotten rid of the romance and put in more of the important scenes (imho) that had been cut out. But Friend B said that he liked the romance, because it made the characters seem like real people and not just plot devices, so I thought that was an interesting observation.
But personally, I kind of wanted to slap both couples (Harry/Ginny, Ron/Hermione) and say, "Oh, just get it over with and kiss each other already!"
Luna was wonderful, as she was in OotP--she was adorably...well...Luna. Maybe the actress did a little too good a job, because I felt that there was more chemistry between her and Harry than there was between Harry and Ginny. I think that they could actually make a good couple: despite her eccentricities, Luna has a lot of compassion, and of course she and Harry have something in common, as they've both suffered the loss of a parent (or parents, in Harry's case). Oh, and I loved the lion hat!
I thought that Draco was wonderfully portrayed in the movie: the actor and the script really seemed to capture that sense of arrogance and bravado covering up Draco's increasing sense of fear and despair. Even Friend B, who knows nothing about the series other than what he's seen in the movies, said that he could tell that Draco was a brat, but he wasn't really a bad guy.
Helen McCrory did a nice job of portraying Narcissa and her concern for Draco, in what little we see of her--her lines in the Unbreakable Vow scene were given to Bellatrix instead, for some reason. But I can't figure out what's up with that two-toned hair. They should've just made her blonde; it would have been less distracting.
Snape was great in the scenes that he was in, although as usual, there wasn't enough of him for a Snape fan like me! But to be fair, there wasn't a great deal of Snape in the book, either. Although they changed the scene on the Astronomy Tower at the end, I did like that moment where Snape shows up behind Harry and places his finger over his lips. I found it kind of heartbreaking, how Harry finally makes the decision to trust Snape, and in a moment, Snape will shatter that trust and kill Dumbledore.
Also liked that in the scene at the Burrows, Lupin admantly defends Snape to Harry. A nice touch for a Snupin shipper like me, even if Snape isn't in that scene. However, in that scene, Harry also shows that Gryffindors can be brave, but not necessarily smart, when he rushes out alone after Bellatrix. (Ginny, too.) In fairness, that sort of recklessness is in character for Harry. But how come Ginny can get through the wall of fire when the more experienced Lupin and Tonks can't? I figured that maybe the magic allowed Harry to get through, since he's obviously the DEs' target, but how does Ginny get through? The power of love, I guess. *barf*
The Inferi scene was great. I knew what was coming, but I still nearly jumped out of my skin when that hand reached up out of the water and grabbed Harry. Someone in the theater actually did let out a little shriek at that moment!
Oh, and the Ron-dosed-with-love-potion scene was hilarious! It tickled my little slasher heart when he stared all moony-eyed at Harry, even though I'm not a Ron/Harry shipper! ^_^
Michael Gambon, I thought, did a good job of portraying the fatherly side of Dumbledore this time--unlike OOC angry!Dumbledore who was yelling at Harry in GoF. Of course, after reading DH, I think of Dumbledore more as a manipulative SOB than a kindly father figure now.
So that was (mostly) the good stuff. The not-so-good stuff: so many things that were never explained in the film. We're never really told whom Fenrir Greyback is, not even that he's a werewolf, although Friend B guessed that he might be from the name. And a great deal of the memory scenes about Tom Riddle were cut out, probably due to time constraints. Friend B got a little confused and thought that Tom was a Muggleborn, since we didn't see the scene with Gaunts that explained about Tom's background. Also, Ginny hid the book in the movie, not Harry, so how is he going to find the Ravenclaw horcrux in the final movie? I guess they'll have to change that part--maybe Ginny will help him find it, or maybe he'll discover it by accident. Or they might do something completely different, I guess.
My number one complaint: Snape is the Half-Blood Prince and they don't even explain how he got the nickname! Couldn't they have cut out a couple minutes of the romance scenes to have Hermione finding the article about Eileen Prince marrying Tobias Snape, so at least we know why Snape is the Half-Blood Prince?
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Heh, so did I! Now I don't feel so bad knowing I'm not the only one. XD
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