Movie Review: "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"

I normally do not like movies made from books. There are a few exceptions, as there are to every rule, "The DaVinci Code" and "Jaws" to name 2, but they are few and far between. I have seen every Potter movie so far, in the theater. I have seen most of them on opening day and I reviewed the last one, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" on this blog. It wasn't exactly complimentary. I was expecting to leave "Half-Blood Prince" as angry and annoyed as I left "Order of the Phoenix."

BabyBoy and I had planned to go to the midnight premiere. I bought tickets online, but, due to the fact that everyone I work with and my entire family laughed at the fact that we were going at midnight, I didn't expect anyone else to be there. Silly me. We arrived at 11:15 for a 12:01 showing. All four theaters were sold out and there were A LOT of people standing in the lobby. BabyBoy worked at this particular theater for almost a year and informed me, later, that each theater held over 300 people. So, at a guess, there were about 1,000 people in that lobby.

We had a brief discussion about whether or not to stay or go back the next day. I picked up my prepurchased tickets and handed them to the nice man patiently waiting (and politely begging) next to the ticket window. He paid for the tickets and BabyBoy and I went home!

We arrived back at the theater the next day at 12:30pm for a 1:00pm show. We had no problems buying tickets or popcorn or finding seats. By the time the previews were over the theater was pretty well packed, but we didn't care. Again, I prepared myself for upset, anger and disappointment.

And was pleasantly surprised that I had very little of all three. Even better, I laughed out loud on several occasions. This movie was the one I had been waiting for. This movie showed us the characters and made us care about them.

*****WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD*********

There was Harry, obviously carrying a torch for Ginny, but not sure what to do about it.
There was Ron and Hermione, carrying a torch for each other but not sure what to do about it.
There was Ron, accidently consuming a love potion meant for Harry and falling all over himself
(Sue me, I enjoy a little slapstick humor)
There was Draco, sobbing alone in the bathroom.
There was Hermione showing what an awesome witch she really is.

There were parts which were left out:
Memories of the Gaunts and other Riddle memories.
Harry's detentions.
The battle at the end.
The funeral.
The Dursleys.
Kreacher and Sirius' will.
Dobby.. again?

There were parts which were added:
The Burrow BURNED?
Tonks and Lupin together? Already?
Ginny and Harry together in the Room of Requirement

Those were all odd or strange, but the parts that made me nuts were the parts which were changed:
Harry standing quietly while someone he loved is threatened? Right!
Exactly where the potions book is now.
A better explanation of what other Horcruxes could be out there.

DSD took LittleMan a week after BabyBoy and I had seen the movie. DSD enjoyed it, LittleMan, not so much, but the reasoning behind that is another post that will, hopefully, be up soon. DSD, who has never read the books, understood about Horcruxes (and even figured out one not mentioned in the movie) but had many questions about other things that the movie did not explain, including Fenrir Greyback, because he had no idea who he was or why he looked so funny.

All in all, this was a much better movie than Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire or Order of the Phoenix. As a book adaptation it was lousy, but, just as a movie on its own, it was pretty good.

There will be two movies made out of the last book. Hopefully, between the two of them, they will answer all the questions, those of the book readers and the non-book readers. If not, I hope they are at least entertaining, as this movie was.

The End of a Long and Harrowing Journey

Well I did say to watch this spot for my review of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows".

My son (who works at a local movie theater) went to Wal-Mart last night after he got off work at 11:30. I mean, really, who would go to Wal-Mart when the BooksAMillion in town has had enormous parties for the the last 3 Potter releases? And, this is the Redneck Riviera.. do people here read?

Apparently a lot do. My son was given a Hufflepuff armband and told he would probably pick up his book about 4am. He came home and went to bed. Smart kid.

So I got up about 9 this morning and jumped in the shower. This would amaze anyone who knows me. I usually sleep until about 11 on Saturdays and shower after I have spent time in the pool.. maybe mid afternoon.

I was at Target before 10 and the entire transaction took less than 5 minutes, it took longer to pick up breakfast for the family. I finished 2 chapters while sitting in the drive through line.

What can I say about this book without giving away the ending, the list of dead, the list of those who lived? I can say I cried once in the first 100 pages and again throughout most of the last 100. I can say that it was a fitting ending for "the Boy who Lived". I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know and spending time in the magical world that J.K. Rowling created and Harry, Ron and Hermione inhabited.

I cannot say that this book was well written or that it was great literature. I cannot say that it was not.

I read quickly. I have an insatiable curiosity to find out the ending, whodunit, what happened, who lived. I do not (the first time I read a book) pay attention to a lot of details. I just have to find out how it ends. I now know how the Harry Potter saga ends. I have passed the book off to my son who is reading it as I type. I will start the entire journey over from the beginning and will, most likely, take the journey again and again, once a year or so, as I do with Stephen King's "The Stand". If I were an author, I would ask for nothing more. And as a reader, I can give no higher praise.

A Movie Review for You!

Ok, it's really for me, but that is ok, too.

Now I have mentioned before that I love all things Harry Potter. I started reading the books because my son was reading them and I wanted to ensure they were appropriate, but then I loved them myself. I eagerly await each new book and I eagerly await each new movie, but I have not been as impressed with the last 3 movies as I wanted to be. I have spoken to people who have not read the books and they didn't seem to understand my upset after "Prisoner of Azkaban" and "Goblet of Fire". I thought there was too much information left out of each movie and that movie-goers would be lost and confused. I was quickly told that this was untrue and people who had not read the books thoroughly enjoyed the movies. So I was lost and confused. "How is that possible?" I thought.

So I went to see "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" at the first midnight showing. By 1AM, I wondered why I was not at home in bed asleep. It wasn't that it was a bad movie, not really. The special effects were very nice and the sweeping scenes of London, Hogwarts and Hogsmeade were beautiful. It wasn't that the information that did not make it from the book to the movie was all that important to the story line. Did the fact that Ron recieved the Gryffindor prefect badge instead of Harry or that Ron made Keeper of the Gryffindor Quidditch team make a huge difference in the story line? No. So why was I upset?

Well, I have had several days to think about it and I finally realized... the things that are being left out of the movie are the things that make me LIKE these characters in the book. They are the things in the story line that make them human.

*WARNING* *POSSIBLE SPOILERS*

In "Order of the Phoenix" there are no ghosts, there is no Dobby, there is very little Snape. Dolores Umbridge has been watered down so that she is simply annoying not truly hateful. This is the O.W.L. (Outstanding Wizarding Level) year for Harry, Ron and Hermione and that is BARELY addressed. The only exam that was included was Defense Against the Dark Arts and that, technically, wasn't completed due to Fred and George. If Fred and George's "skiving snackboxes" were addressed at all, I missed it. Kreacher was done well, but again, he wasn't around long to enough to get to know. I never truly felt Harry's rage and angst like I did in the book. I never truly felt Siruis' restlessness or resentment of being cooped up. I felt like Hermione's cleverness with the D.A.D.A. coins and the parchment that everyone signed should have been included (I actually read somewhere that Ron was left out more so that Hermione could be included, where?)

The Department of Mysteries battle through the brains, the time turners, and everything else I didn't really miss. I thought the battle was well done. But the "Avada Kedavra" was never used on Sirius in the book. I have seen it hinted by J.K. Rowling that Sirius may return in "Deathly Hallows", how can he return in the movie? We all know that is the killing curse. (And that may or may not be true).

So in case you missed my opinion, I didn't really enjoy this movie. The cinematography was great, the acting was ok, but the storyline was subpar. If I hadn't read the books, I wouldn't care about these people AT ALL.

So, I will wait as patiently as I can for one more week and then I will say Good-bye to Harry, Hermione, Ron and the rest of the wizarding world.

Watch this space for my review of the book!