Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

So I'd managed to have some non-BabyL time last weekend, and without Hubby. Hubby stayed at home to take care of BabyL (and did a spendid job), while I went with a a friend to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

My friend whom I went with only read the first book and watched the first movie, so she really has no idea as to what was going to happen. I did encourage her to read the synopsis of all the books, but I think she'd only gotten through the synopsis for this movie and that was about it: she was watching this movie more or less blind. From that point of view, she did say that the movie was enjoyable and she was able to more or less follow the plot.

I have some major quibbles myself about the movie:

• Other than reveling who the Half-Blood Prince was, there was no other explanation as to why this person was the Half-Blood Prince, and more importantly, the significance of it
• The girl who played Lavender Brown over-acted
• Although they included the big scene near the end of the book about finding the third Horcrux, I felt that the significance of Horcruxes themselves were kind of glossed over in the movie -- trust me when I say Horcruxes are much more significant than you realise (if you haven't read the books)
  
• I still feel that they didn't emphasize that Snape was very reluctant to kill Dumbledore
• There was a lot of other significant detail in Book 6 that is very important in Book 7 that they completely left out.

Having said that, I still enjoyed the movie for what it was. Book 6 gets darker still and the overall mood of the movie reflected that. To be fair to the movie producers, I felt that Book 6 was overly long and that J.K Rowling didn't have to put in a big epic scene of Harry and Dumbledore looking for the third Horcrux in the book. Of course, at the end of this movie, it was clearly set up for the next two and final movies in the series.

I feel what will happen for Movie 7a is that a lot of the significant detail that was missing from the previous movies will be added and fleshed out. And Movie 7b will pretty much be the fight to the finish. I think it was a good decision on Paramount's part to split the last book into two movies because of the tremendous amount of detail that shows up in the book. Not only will this finally satisfy the book lovers, but Paramount will milk this francise for what it's worth (no cynasim, really!)

I give this 3.5 out of 5.

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

(For those of you reading this, the cover on the left is the UK version, which Canada gets, and not the US cover).

Warning, there be spoilers below!

I got home yesterday at about 2pm, and the new Harry Potter book was sitting on my doorstep. So I pretty much dumped all good intentions on doing homework (I'm already a week behind where I want to be), and had a 12-hour marathon read.

Here are my impressions. Things I didn't really like:

• JKR (as some other book writers have complained), isn't a good writer. And she isn't. She's a very good story teller, but her scenes and chapters could have been tighter and better plotted out. Sure, she tied up her loose ends, but she also crammed in too many details. The whole looking-for-the-Horcruxes and the Battle at Hogwarts both could have been compressed plot-wise, and a lot of details could have been left out or combined.
  
• When Harry et al found out about the Deathly Hallows, I was thinking, oh boy, JKR is once again is introducing another idea, and since this is the final book (so she says), she has to tie things up quickly. That annoyed me.
• Convenient plot devices:
  
• Harry seems to conveniently "forget" about things all the time. For someone whose always so curious, he tends to be non-curious at the right time, especially around Dumbledore. Of course, when he does ask the wrong questions (as opposed to the right questions), he gets non-answers from Dumbledore. That just makes Harry look stupid, and I don't buy the "Harry-regrets-the-questions -that-he-never-asked- Dumbledore-because- he-was-being-a-selfish -and-self-centred-git" reasoning. It's just too convenient for JKR.
  
• Speaking of convenient amnesia, why didn't anyone point out that even before Harry got to Hogwarts, that they had a different DA teacher every year (well, before book 6 anyways)? The adults certainly should have mentioned it. Fred and George I believe would have mentioned it.
  
• Snape's secret: Well, a lot of people had figured that he was in love with Lily, so it wasn't a huge surprise there for me. I agree with JKR's reasoning for killing him off, but unrequited love is one of the oldest plot devices in the world, and I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes during the reveal of Snape's secret. I really like Snape as a character, but I wished that there was a different reason for his reason to turn to Dumbledore. But even that aside, I wish Harry felt a little more empathy towards Snape, particularly since Harry represented to Snape the persons he loved and hated the most. I didn't feel that Snape was redeemed in my mind. When Snape asked to look at Harry's eyes before he died, that was sad, but at the same time, I thought it was pathetic of JKR to plot it out that way.
  
• The last couple of chapters and the epilogue was too cheesy. Yes, I know that people died, but it was still cheesy. And over-the-top dramatics. I can't imagine it unfolding like how it did with all the dramatics.
  

Things that I did like:

• The whole mood of the book. It was a depressing read, but it was meant to be depressing. Even the moments of levity didn't lift my mood. The themes that JKR brought out was very adult in nature. Yes, a lot of people died, but life isn't fair that way. This series stopped being a kid's book by book 4 in my opinion
• I didn't get where Neville got the sword from until this morning. He got it from the Sorting Hat (duh!). I really like how JKR developed his character.
  
• JKR had the balls to kill off good people as well as the baddies (and she let a lot of the baddies live). Life doesn't always work the way you want it to.
  

My other comments:

• I get how when Lily sacrificed herself, she had inadvertently put a charm on Harry protecting him, so the Killing Curse bounced off of him the first time. I'm still a little fuzzy about how this affect Voldermort and the whole circular reasoning that Dumbledore was explaining to Harry, that was confusing (it was 1 AM, and I was tired!). Someone please explain this to me!
  

Overall, I give this book a 6.75 out of 10. JKR really had to tie up a lot of things and it was evident in the book. Probably my biggest complaint is that JKR tries to cram too much in the the overall plotline, and because she gave herself restricting parametres (7 books in combination with revealing bits of information over time), the books aren't as well written as they should be.

But that doesn't stop me from being a fan. I'm waiting for the soft cover book box set to come out so I can buy it =D

Movie: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

(I went to go see Harry Potter late last night and didn't get home until 1 am. This is a brain dump of my impressions, before I forget it all. I also may have some details mixed up from the book, I'm only halfway finished reading it again. Those of you from H! who read my comments there, what is typed below is pretty much the same)

Warning: Lots of spoilers below, and even if you've read the book but not have seen the movie, there's a lot that was changed around and/or left out in the movie, so at least watch the movie first if you don't want to know what happens.

I think David Yates did a good job, especially setting the tone of the movie. There were a few laughs, but overall the book was quite dark, and the movie reflected that. Because the book is sooooo long and full of detail, the script writers had to make adjustments and either gloss over certain plot points, change them around or eliminate them completely. All in all, the script itself was mostly plausible, but things will never truly make sense unless you've read the book at least once.

However, I really wished they did a two-parter or made the movie a bit longer, as there was so much detail that I would have liked to seen. As much as David Yates tried to restrain the pace, there still was a feeling that there was so much going on that the movie felt a bit rushed.

Things I liked:

• Dorlorus Umbridge was really well casted. Imedla Staunton had her "hem hem"s down to T, and I felt like punching her from the beginning. I also loved her pink cat room.
  
• I think they did a pretty good job with Luna Lovegood. She's always described as talking with a dreamy-like, sing-song voice, and I always felt that Luna never was quite there mentally. That came through well for me.
• Bellatrix, also well casted. She's one nasty piece of work
• How they portray the Extensible Ears, much better than how I imagined it
• I'm glad the fight scene was short; it was well played out in the movie. That part was particularly tedious to read in the book and I always felt that JKR should have taken some details out of this section of the book.
  
• The Department of Mystery was how I imagined it to be. The Ministry of Magic set was better than how I had imagined it
• I liked how they made Cho the snitch, it does help show their relationship fizzle (I also was never a very big Cho fan, so didn't see what Harry ever saw in her besides a pretty face)
• We saw hints of Ginny's true magical power capabilities. I think we'll be seeing way more of that from her in Book 7.
• Dudley's costume, that was hilarious! Harry Melling looked like he was having way too much fun playing the role, even after he was kissed by a Dementor
• Even in the brief flashback, I thought Young Snape was hot! and not a greaseball at all
• I'm glad they decided to develop Neville's character more in the movie. I also think he will have a large part to play in Book 7
• I was really impressed with the special effects in the Ministry fight scene. Kudos to those people.

Things I didn't like:

• They took out Mrs. Black's shrieking portrait. That's one of the things I did want to see
• I'm hoping that they do something with Ginny dating life in Movie 6, she shouldn't have been shown still pining for Harry, but should be "over him" already. And her characterization in the book was much stronger, but that wasn't shown at all in the movie. I particularly wished that they kept the Dungbomb scene in.
• They did a poor job of not explaining why Harry was able to see thing through the eyes of the snake when it attacked Mr. Weasley
• Not showing that Petunia got that Howler from Dumbledore. There's more going on with her than meets the eye, I think, and will probably be reveled in book 7
• That they didn't show Harry not building up his anger at the beginning because he felt left out of the loop and was kept wondering why no one did anything about Voldermort (he didn't know what they were saying about him in the Daily Prophet until they he got to Grimmauld Place)
• They cut out Quiddich completely from the movie
• The scene where Hargid was explaining his trip to go see the giants was weak, not how it was scripted, but how it played out
• Snape was totally out of character when Umbridge was questioning his teach abilities. What happened with the snarl? I get what David Yates was trying to show, but I wished Snape stayed in character for that scene.

Other comments:

• I think that changing the scene in the movie where Voldermort does enter Harry's brain, the script is trying to gloss over the fact that Voldermort doesn't understand love, and hence covers in the book the whole speech that Dumbledore gave at the end to Harry
• I did catch one continuity error. Hermonie had no trouble saying Voldermort's name at the beginning of the movie, yet at Hog's Head, she had to force herself to say it. (She should have been saying You-know-who up to this point)
• No mention of how Kretcher went to Bellatrix and Narcissa to tell them abou the OoTP. Not a big sticking point IMO. How they ended up working around it was plausible.
• I'm a loser. I love London, and loved recognizing the city in the movie. I like Westminster Station's look (it's one of the nicer Tube stations that I've seen), and was wondering what scene they were filming there when I heard that they did film there. I actually passed through London a month before they filmed that scene.
  

Well, that's all I remember for now. I'm certain that more will come to me later. All in all, a good movie, and probably the best one so far.

Movie rating: 8 out of 10

Harry Potter, the next movie

Squeeeeee! I can't wait for July! I've been reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Price in preparation for the next and final book, also coming out in July. These stories stopped being children's stories a long time ago.

Harry Potter is naked

I heard about this a while ago, but didn't think very much of it, as frankly, I don't think Daniel Radcliffe is much of an actor. Plus, I won't be in London to see it when it's in production, so why pay attention to something that I won't get to see.

That is until they released some pictures. Apparently, he's actually naked in most of the play. I thought of posting one of the nudie pictures, but that would be too frightening. However, you can see more here.

For those who have your mind in the gutter, no, you don't get to see his boy bits, but it's pretty obvious that he's nekkid. I'm certain that once this play starts, there will be nekkid pictures of Daniel Radcliffe all over the internet, boy bits and all.

The play also stars Richard Griffths, who plays Harry Potter's Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter films.