Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince Review
Obviously this contains tons of spoilers.
It’s taken me nearly a week to really come to a conclusion about what I thought about the new Harry Potter movie. Having loved this book (and the series as a whole), it’s always hard for me to figure out whether I’m enjoying the movie because I’m in love with the Harry Potter series (and so by extension, anything that has to do with it), or because it’s actually a good movie-going experience.
This is the first HP movie I was apprehensive about seeing. There are some pretty intense scenes in the book that a PG rating just can’t cover. But once you get over that hurdle, the movie, from a purely movie-goer standpoint, is a good one. It’s adventurous, it’s witty, it’s entertaining, and that’s all I ever ask from a movie. But it doesn’t hold up when you compare it to the books. This is the first of the movies I’ve ever had a problem with. I don’t really know why, except I think they poorly handled the two most emotionally charged (for me, anyway) scenes in the book.
The one scene that I actually wanted to see, the one scene that I thought would make or break this movie for me, was the scene within the caves. I cannot get through that part of the book without crying my eyes out (and once embarrassed myself on a plane by doing just that). It started off on the right foot – a sweeping pan of Dumbledore and Harry in front of the caves, the waves crashing and the music haunting. The atmosphere is tense as they descend into the cave, avoiding the waters and eventually rowing slowly across. I’ll even give the filmmakers a break for not making the boat trip more dramatic. It’s after Dumbledore drinks his first mouthful that the movie loses me. The dynamic between Dumbledore and Harry deserves better than what happens next in the movies. There are no tears, there is no pain etched within their faces (except, perhaps, Dumbledore who is, in fact, in some pain), there is no heart wrenching cruelty in what they are doing to each other -- Harry causing Dumbledore excruciating pain, Dumbledore causing Harry excruciating heartache. It’s a short montage of Dumbledore looking old and pained and saying No, and once “KILL ME”, and Harry looking nervous and a bit upset. This, for me, was the most emotionally driven part of the books. There is a father-son aspect to these two characters, and it’s absolutely horrifying to watch (or read, rather) one causing so much pain to the other, while the other is reduced to nothing. I feel like the movie shortchanged this interaction. Perhaps it was too dark for their PG audience. So why not up that rating to a PG-13 and show some real emotion, real pain? They give this scene the shaft while moving on to the much more exciting Inferi.
I was willing to give the filmmakers another chance in the form of Dumbledore’s death. Fine, you may have given my favorite scene the short end of the stick, but how will you handle the climax of this story? In the words of my boyfriend (who is not a book reader, nor a huge fan), “It’s like the filmmakers asked themselves, how can we take this and suck all of the drama out of it? How can we make it as bland as possible?” Because that’s exactly what they did.
It also bothered me that they tinged the way that Dumbledore says those two words, (“Severus. Please.”) with the knowledge of what comes next. As readers, we don’t know how these words are intoned, we only hear it from Harry's point of view. In the book, it is described as pleading -- "The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading." In the movie, Dumbledore sounds as if he's asking Severus for release, rather than pleading for his life (which is, in fact, what he is asking, though we don't know this as readers/viewers yet). For me, that is giving the viewers way too much of a hint about Snape's intentions. When I told this to my boyfriend, he said he didn't know what I was talking about. But still, it bothered me.
The attack on the Weasley home also gets to me. It wasn’t in the book, and it wasn’t necessary except to break up the flow of the movie and insert a random action scene for the sake of an action scene (and, yes, I’ve read that the writers added it so they could make Voldemort’s attacks on the wizarding world more real to Harry, and no, I don’t think that’s a good enough reason). If you want to throw in an action scene, why not throw in the one at the end, between the Death Eaters, the Order, and the DA? Now that would have been a great scene for a movie. I can kind of see how showing the destruction of the Hogwarts grounds immediately after Dumbledore’s death would have cemented his death and added to the loss (which is what is done in the film). Fine, I’ll give you that. It also makes Harry’s charge after Snape that much more intense. Sure. But wouldn’t it have been even more intense after he sees them attack his friends and their familes? I just don’t see why they swapped one action scene for another, when one was not only superior, but was actually written in the book.
But as a movie-goer, I would say it was an entertaining experience, and that's all I can ask for, really. I just wish it had been both entertaining, and true to the story that I love.
Thoughts?
It’s taken me nearly a week to really come to a conclusion about what I thought about the new Harry Potter movie. Having loved this book (and the series as a whole), it’s always hard for me to figure out whether I’m enjoying the movie because I’m in love with the Harry Potter series (and so by extension, anything that has to do with it), or because it’s actually a good movie-going experience.
This is the first HP movie I was apprehensive about seeing. There are some pretty intense scenes in the book that a PG rating just can’t cover. But once you get over that hurdle, the movie, from a purely movie-goer standpoint, is a good one. It’s adventurous, it’s witty, it’s entertaining, and that’s all I ever ask from a movie. But it doesn’t hold up when you compare it to the books. This is the first of the movies I’ve ever had a problem with. I don’t really know why, except I think they poorly handled the two most emotionally charged (for me, anyway) scenes in the book.
The one scene that I actually wanted to see, the one scene that I thought would make or break this movie for me, was the scene within the caves. I cannot get through that part of the book without crying my eyes out (and once embarrassed myself on a plane by doing just that). It started off on the right foot – a sweeping pan of Dumbledore and Harry in front of the caves, the waves crashing and the music haunting. The atmosphere is tense as they descend into the cave, avoiding the waters and eventually rowing slowly across. I’ll even give the filmmakers a break for not making the boat trip more dramatic. It’s after Dumbledore drinks his first mouthful that the movie loses me. The dynamic between Dumbledore and Harry deserves better than what happens next in the movies. There are no tears, there is no pain etched within their faces (except, perhaps, Dumbledore who is, in fact, in some pain), there is no heart wrenching cruelty in what they are doing to each other -- Harry causing Dumbledore excruciating pain, Dumbledore causing Harry excruciating heartache. It’s a short montage of Dumbledore looking old and pained and saying No, and once “KILL ME”, and Harry looking nervous and a bit upset. This, for me, was the most emotionally driven part of the books. There is a father-son aspect to these two characters, and it’s absolutely horrifying to watch (or read, rather) one causing so much pain to the other, while the other is reduced to nothing. I feel like the movie shortchanged this interaction. Perhaps it was too dark for their PG audience. So why not up that rating to a PG-13 and show some real emotion, real pain? They give this scene the shaft while moving on to the much more exciting Inferi.
I was willing to give the filmmakers another chance in the form of Dumbledore’s death. Fine, you may have given my favorite scene the short end of the stick, but how will you handle the climax of this story? In the words of my boyfriend (who is not a book reader, nor a huge fan), “It’s like the filmmakers asked themselves, how can we take this and suck all of the drama out of it? How can we make it as bland as possible?” Because that’s exactly what they did.
It also bothered me that they tinged the way that Dumbledore says those two words, (“Severus. Please.”) with the knowledge of what comes next. As readers, we don’t know how these words are intoned, we only hear it from Harry's point of view. In the book, it is described as pleading -- "The sound frightened Harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, Dumbledore was pleading." In the movie, Dumbledore sounds as if he's asking Severus for release, rather than pleading for his life (which is, in fact, what he is asking, though we don't know this as readers/viewers yet). For me, that is giving the viewers way too much of a hint about Snape's intentions. When I told this to my boyfriend, he said he didn't know what I was talking about. But still, it bothered me.
The attack on the Weasley home also gets to me. It wasn’t in the book, and it wasn’t necessary except to break up the flow of the movie and insert a random action scene for the sake of an action scene (and, yes, I’ve read that the writers added it so they could make Voldemort’s attacks on the wizarding world more real to Harry, and no, I don’t think that’s a good enough reason). If you want to throw in an action scene, why not throw in the one at the end, between the Death Eaters, the Order, and the DA? Now that would have been a great scene for a movie. I can kind of see how showing the destruction of the Hogwarts grounds immediately after Dumbledore’s death would have cemented his death and added to the loss (which is what is done in the film). Fine, I’ll give you that. It also makes Harry’s charge after Snape that much more intense. Sure. But wouldn’t it have been even more intense after he sees them attack his friends and their familes? I just don’t see why they swapped one action scene for another, when one was not only superior, but was actually written in the book.
But as a movie-goer, I would say it was an entertaining experience, and that's all I can ask for, really. I just wish it had been both entertaining, and true to the story that I love.
Thoughts?