The Final Verdict On Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince

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Well I imagine this will fall somewhere between the fanboy glorifications and the ignorant “HP is Gay” hate posts on every conceivable forum in the galaxy, but as I am convinced that the internet is a place where people can post their opinions on anything and the odds are only a handful will read them, here is my take on the most recent adventure of Harry Potter.  (Holy run-on sentence, Batman).

I am a fan of the Harry Potter series.  This does not mean I dress up like every character in the book regardless of gender and show up at every midnight screening for the books and movies and write creepy slash fics regarding Draco and Harry.  No, this means I enjoyed the books.  I thought they told a good story.  I have also enjoyed the movies.  And while I will be criticizing this movie at many points during this review you should know that I still consider it one of the better films ever made and probably the best film of the year.

My only real problem with HBP is that it seems to have a mild case of schizophrenia, it can’t really decide between being a light-hearted romantic comedy and a dark grizzly tale about the end of the world.  That’s forgivable, because the book was that way too, but the manner of execution is a little skewed.

For instance certain key elements from the book are skirted over completely (there is only a passing mention to Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) getting the role of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher), and passed off as “oh, well you should read the book”.  But it seems that’s the last thing the director wanted you to do as he changed, altered and downright butchered several parts of the story in his film version.

I’m not exactly a purist, and I understand that films and books are two very different mediums for conveying ideas, but I believe when one is adapted for the other there should be a relative amount of cohesiveness and if you must choose to have creative license or to have a reliance on knowledge of the other version, it seems you should pick one and run with it.

Let me give you a couple of examples, and for fear of ruining major plot points I won’t go into detail on the last one.  First off in HBP the book, Tonks the Auror (dark-wizard catcher) saves Harry when he is trapped on the train by nemesis Draco Malfoy.  In HBP the movie, the director somehow found it necessary to have Luna Lovegood, and odd classmate of Harry’s, take this role.  

Also (and this is the part where I skirt the details) the final confrontation on the Astronomy Tower is absolutely confunded (see what I did there?) It’s a complete diversion from the way it was in the book and will leave the aforementioned purists with a bitter taste in their mouths for weeks.

It was interesting viewing this film because it reminded me an awful lot of the derivations in the plot from Fellowship of the Ring.  In that film Arwen saved Frodo from the Nasgul, but in the book it was another random elf who is scarcely mentioned again in the rest of the series.  In fact, I’ve forgotten his name, but you get the point.

Also the end confrontation with Aragorn speaking to Frodo was a completely diversion from the original and without giving too much detail, let’s just say that HBP was apparently following in its footsteps with their ending.

Also the reason they pushed the attack on the Burrough forward was beyond me.  I was sitting on Youtube adamantly defending the producers of the film saying that the burning house we saw in several trailers was Hagrid’s and while I was indeed right about that, they burned down the Burrough anyways, stabbing me and several fans in the back and making me look like the over-opinionated twit that I am. 

Now, I think I have enough here to have several would-be wizards casting verbal Avada Kadavras at me for daring to be an objective reviewer, so let me comment on the positive points of the film.

As usual the acting was well above par, the three main heroes Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) fit their roles perfectly.  We’ve seen them grow up through six films and in a way they have become the characters in a way that most actors only aspire to.

Of course the extensive and brilliant supporting cast make a menagerie of talent (yes, I’m bringing that word back into the modern lexicon.  Deal with it).  It is, I believe, in this film that the current Dumbledore surpasses his predecessor Richard Harris who (as you probably know) died after Chamber of Secrets.  Then you’ve got the magnificent bad guy Draco Malfoy as portrayed by the incredibly talented Tom Felton, who may very well surpass Radcliffe in terms of acting ability.  Portraying the tortured villain who is experiencing (along with the usual range of teenage emotions) the crushing weight of the task that Voldemort has assigned him.

Alan Rickman does a magnificent Snape, but in this film it seems like the director wanted to make it as obvious as possible that he wasn’t really a bad guy, and thus if you haven’t read the books you won’t believe for a minute that he is one, which is what the book intended.  (Let me clarify that, we all know he’s not, but you’re supposed to believe he is).

The romantic aspect of the story brings a little light into film.  The budding relationship between Hermione and Ron is one that we’ve been waiting for since Prisoner of Azkaban, and Ginny finally expresses her feelings for Harry, albeit in a different… more secret way than in the book.  Furthermore Emma Watson rises to the top of the three in terms of acting based on her portrayal of the love-sick Hermione, becoming a vessel for sorrow, contempt, anger, and even a shade of bitter madness that we scarcely get to see.

Also fans will be pleased to know that Quidditch still has a place in the films (in fact it was necessary to reveal certain romantic plot points) and the trials with Harry as Captain are one of the few scenes that they nailed exactly as they were in the book.

One final note, if you are confused by the opening of the film, don’t worry, so am I.  I’m not sure why they felt they had to exclude the Dursley’s (yes everybody’s favorite muggles are absent from this film) and the complete omission of Rufus Scrimgeour is forgivable, but presents all sorts of problems for the design of the seventh film (well seventh and eighth to be exact).  Point is, if you go into this film expecting a carbon copy of the book with better special effects, you may be disappointed, but if you treat the movies and books as separate entities… well you’ll still be disappointed.  I think the best way to truly enjoy this film is to accept that it is what it is:  a stylized Hollywood retelling of a great Harry Potter book with a few alterations to make it more (pardon the pun) sexy.

So, the final verdict…  your video library is not complete without this film.  9/10