Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: Walt’s Quick Review
by WaltTags: Harry Potter
Okay, I haven't actually seen the movie yet. However, the local cineplex has five (5) midnight showings scheduled for Tuesday night, and I will most certainly attempt to watch it then.
Think I'm just tagging along with the crowds? Perhaps. But then again, I always have. I stood in line to watch the first Star Wars movie (aka "Episode IV: A New Hope) when it first hit screens in... what year was Star Wars first out? 1967? No matter. On to the review of the movie I haven't seen yet: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. This comes from the memory of my reading the book a couple of years ago and peeking at some reviews of those folks who've already seen the movie at the premiere this last week. Mild spoilers ensue.
Rated PG, this movie covers the sixth year at Hogwarts and Voldemort is back! Wait, has Voldemort ever been gone? Well, now he's back and above ground and kicking ass! This is underscored by the opening sequence you've seen a piece of in the trailers, where some wanton destruction happens to a famous looking bridge in London, wrecked by Voldemort's henchwizards.
Love the hat, stay for the potion
However, before Harry Potter can even get to Hogwarts, he's whisked away by Dumbledore so that a key wizard can be introduced into the story. I won't go too much into details, but it turns out Snape has made an Unbreakable Vow with Voldemort and a certain Potions teacher is working for the other side now. If you think that being told that Snape is evil is a surprise and a spoiler, why have you read this far?
Dumbledore's relationship with Harry has changed between the last movie and this one.
In the last, Dumbledore was relatively aloof, separate from Harry, lest the Dark Lord read Harry's mind to guess where Dumbledore hides his porn.
Or whatever.
Does this inferno make my nose look big?
This time, Dumbledore gets more personal with Harry and actually needs Harry's help. Dumbledore is on the cusp of solving a great mystery, the reason why Voldemort didn't die when Harry was first given his lightning scar, and we soon learn there's little pieces of Voldemort's soul squired away in various places.
Later on in the movie, Dumbledore takes Harry on a trip to find one of these little pieces, and it's not really one of those nice "Wanna Get Away?" vacation hideaway spots I'd want to visit any time soon.
But most people in the audience want to know about who's snogging whom.
After all, these are teenage kids whom we've seen grow up together. It's about time they started swapping spit.
The movie's first scene with Harry opens up with "The Chosen One" easily scoring the digits of some coffee waitress before Dumbledore whisks him away. Dumbledore updates Harry on the upcoming doom to the point where Harry puts away his wand and forgets about all the potential hotties wanting to jump his bones. Harry has the special wand, but can only whip it out when he senses danger. Yeah, like Spider-Man. Only with less goo shooting. But Harry seems to be the only student not hooking up. Portending death seems to keep our Harry all emo'd out.
For the rest of the students, the hormones are flying about as much as the golden snitch does in the quidditch matches played during the movie.
The fun comes with the Hermoine / Ron angle, and watching this interplay will be a treat. Ron has been occupied snogging on the lips of one Lavender Brown, and Hermoine is ticked that... well, that she didn't think of it first.
But Hermoine has always been just the pal of Ron and Harry. Ron really hasn't thought of Hermoine as anything other than just a girl he knows.
However, as we in the audience all know, Hermoine has developed into quite the young witch.
Cast the right spell, and the men will beat a path to your garden door
So, unfortunately for Ron, he and Hermoine are in denial that there's anything between them, so the romance there just fails to blossom. Yet. Topping off Ron's problems is that other young girls want a piece of Harry.
When Ron gets dosed with a love potion meant for Harry, Ron's wand threatens just about everybody in shooting distance:
The problem is, Harry is busy with his life and death issues, he really can't concentrate on where to put his wand.
You would think Hermoine could have used this confusion to charm her way into The Chosen One's heart. Alas, we know it's not to be.
Eventually, we in the audience know that Ron and Hermoine will eventually hook up.
I'll bet you're sad you didn't read the book and just waited for the movie, aren't you?
After all this snogging and young lust gets wrapped up, the movie comes back around to the plot of -- well, you know... killing and death and all.
It was a dark and death eater night
I mean, the whole Harry Potter series is about second chances. You know, the second chances Voldemort has to kill Harry Potter in every movie/book.
Hey, evil guys need second chances, too, ya know.
Don't let the PG rating fool you. While the topic of death and killing has to be dealt with with a minimum of blood and guts to stay away from the PG-13 rating, there's certainly some less than happy moments in this film.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:11 am
I can hardly, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz er, wait. Sorry Walt, I've never really been a fan of this series, Harry has always seemed something of a stumblebum to me, not really heroic, and something of a doofis. Perhaps this is because I've never read any of the books. and I've seen all of the films as being derivative. Oh, I'll probably see it (I've seen all the rest), but I'm certain I won't enjoy it any more than I've enjoyed any of the other films.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:23 am
In Young Adult stories, not every hero/heroine immediately turns into one of the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew. Nancy Drew was never targeted directly as the unprepared waif, but always skated by initially on her apparent inability to do anything to solve the mystery.
Harry is doomed from the first page of the series, the first minute of the first film. Harry has things happen to him, and he's underprepared to cope with it. Unlike Nancy Drew or any other Young Adult hero stories, Harry has to become MORE powerful than any other person (wizard) in order to survive.
In essence, it's the Impossible Task. Not only is the series a Coming Of Age story arc, which HAS been done and can seem derivative, it's a David vs. Goliath thing, where David starts out as a baby and told Goliath is going to kill him -- even if David grows to be a man, Goliath is still going to be much more powerful.
I would imagine that's why Harry seems like a doofus to you and some others. He's certainly meant to be inept in the early books, but after the last movie encounter, we know that Harry can at least directly fight to a standstill the effects of Voldemort's powers.
But as mentioned, Voldemort can't really die - we find out about this during the early parts of this movie. Essentially, even if Harry were to have beaten Voldemort, the Big Baddie could conceivably keep coming back. Yes, it's a plot device to continue the series, but as the series ends, not all of Harry's friends survive to the last page. In the book series, we were presented with the real possibility that quite a lot of Harry's friends could be killed.
The concept is, "Yes, Harry started off as a doofus, but he's the only chance his friends have of surviving. How does one un-doofus-fy oneself long enough to keep one's friends from being horribly murdered?"