harry potter and the half-blood prince

so, the sixth installment of the hp series had been delayed to the point of finally opening on the exact night that the order of the phoenix did two years ago in 2007. needless to say, i have been anxious to see it. and apparently the wait did wonders for the movie, which grossed a record $22.2 million in midnight showings alone. yikes. i contributed $8.25 to this total, deciding to drive an hour to watch the movie by myself. you might think it's kind of sad and, well, i do too, but i wanted to see it. (and your opinions on said patheticness will only be intensified after reading this review/rant/blog-essay.)

(spoilers ahead. just forewarning. potentially for book 7, too..)

i'll start by saying that any fan of the series who wants the movies to be a page-by-page translation of the books will be disappointed by every movie in the series. books of this depth in story, character, background and fictional culture will never be able to perfectly adapt to the screen. it's an entirely different medium and things will have to be changed/left out.

that said, as a movie, the half-blood prince was pretty good. i felt that the flow of the movie was very fluid. director david yates kept the main story progressing along nicely, while sprinkling in visual reminders of everything else going on (ie. periodic scenes with malfoy trying to fix the vanishing cabinet thing and a very quick shot of the death eaters trying to penetrate the hogwarts boundaries.) some have expressed some exasperation toward the amount of attention given to the character's romatic interests in the film. i will admit that there could have been a scosh less emphasis on that aspect of the story, but at the same time, it was a very key element in the book. in one sense this book is about the characters coming closer together, as dumbledore encourages harry to keep ron and hermione in the loop at all times, as well as setting up the loyalties to be counted on. so yes, in talking about characters who are 16 years old, the story is about the hormones kicking in and about the characters dealing with them. and i think that yates' use of this subplot to add humor to the movie was a nice touch. the light-heartedness had been missing from the series since the first, maybe second installment. that initial 'wow, i'm a wizard and this world is friggin cool' sentiment was replaced by the forboding gloomyness that the series encompasses as it progresses. the wild world of diagon alley, first spells, quidditch!, changing staircases and flying cars gave way to dark arts and life-or-death situations. so it was nice to see some of that return in the form of awkward flirting and more humor than usual. (although, i did think it toed the line of inappropriateness when ginny got down on her knees to tie harry's sneaker..)

where the move missed, to me, was addressing the gravity of the impending situation. the opening shot was awesome. harry and dumbledore standing in front of a crowd of paparazzi, who are snapping photos frantically, assumedly following the battle that raged inside the minsitry at the end of the order of the phoenix. the lighting and look in the two characters' faces said it all: 'this is effing serious, now. you have no idea how bad things are going to get.' and apart from periodic exceptions, that level of seriousness was never achieved again for the rest of the film. for example, the story, in another sense, was about draco's struggle in completing a mission assigned directly to him by voldemort. imagine the pressure of someone his age in trying to accomplish such a feat as getting death eaters inside hogwarts and killing dumbledore. no shit he was frustrated at not being able to fix the vanishing box thing (the emotion of which did not appear as strongly in those scenes) and no shit he was terrified of what would happen if he failed, leading malfoy, the most sinister and looked-up-to leader, to literally break down into tears in the bathroom (another scene that lacked the impact it had in the book. the book almost makes you sympathize with a character you've grown to loathe, almost admiring his struggle to fully accept that what he is doing is right, and instead only working to the end of his mission out of fear that he will be killed if he fails. a serious miss by yates.)

but mostly, the story was about the terror that is now spreading about the magical (and somewhat into the muggle) world. voldemort is back in full force, gaining more and more followers than ever before, and at the same time dumbledore is finally figuring out why voldemort is able to keep coming back, and, more importantly, how to stop him. more time should have been spent hammering these notions home. a storm is brewing, and, yes, it will largely play out in 'deathly hallows,' but the set-up needed to be much more powerful. take, for instance, the entirely made-for-film scene where death eaters apparate to the burrow, create a chase and mini-battle, then send the weasley's house up in flames. this wasn't in the book, which would be fine if it served a valuable purpose, but it didn't. the intention behind the scene, i'd imagine, was to show how vulnerable the main characters are at all times now that voldemort is at large again, and to also revisit harry's desire to avenge sirius black's death (shown through his hot-headed pursuit of bellatrix.) while it accomplished these things, it chewed up about 10 minutes of the film - time that makes a huge difference in a project of this undertaking, and time that could have been spent to strengthen the most important scenes. like..

1) hammer home the horcruxes. it was merely mentioned after slughorn's memory was revealed and about 30 seconds of dialogue ensued. this was minor, and, hopefully, most people understood.
2) the climax was desperately weak (that's what she said.)
a) for one, the battle between the death eaters and the order of the phoenix members and students was removed. this i don't understand. why include a burrow scene when that time could have been used to show how the death eaters have INFILTRATED HOGWARTS. you're telling me that after all that time draco spent getting them access to the impenetrable school that all they're going to do is stand around, watch dumbledore get killed and then run away?! no. they're going to fight people. kill people. like j.k. rowling said they did.
b) while i loved the acting for the most part, dumbledore, you needed to hammer home those lines about 'you must do whatever i say. if i say hide, you hide. if i say run, you run. and if i tell you to leave and save yourself, you do it.' for fuck's sake, this suddenly just got a violent shove from, 'hey, have a look in my pensive of an innocent memory' to 'hey, we could easily die where we're going.' and then again.. fuckin-a, yates! that potion that dumbledore has to drink is fucking killing him! and harry has to keep forcing it on him. he has to keep making his friend, his headmaster, the greatest wizard of all time suffer. where was the pain, yates? where was the gravity?
c) yates, i'm not sure as though you got this: dumbledore dies. he gets fucking murdered by snape. the man whose magical ability rivals only voldemort. the man who ran hogwarts, taught harry everything important, the one hope for defense, was thrown off the astronomy tower by the killing curse at the hands of 'is he good, is he bad' snape. (which, yates, you really helped everyone who doesn't already know get a very good idea of which side that is by your brilliantly free licensed use of him in the final sequences.) dumbledore's death seemed, to me, to be treated like the death of just any old character. look, time fucking stopped when i read that sentence. the book closed. i took a deep breath, thought to my self, 'holy shit, you can't be serious,' and felt thoroughly heart-broken. during the film, a slight gasp.. maybe..?

as a fan of the books, i will say that i enjoyed the movie as a movie. but while the humor and light-hearted scenes were nice to see return to the franchise, the notes that needed serious drama and emotion were not given the gravity they required to contribute as much meaning to the series or to set up the shit-storm that is the final installment. i needed more punch. i needed to know that while teenage "feelings" are aflutter inside hogwarts, the world is in serious danger and hopes to conquer the strengthening enemy are taking huge hits. this is what i needed, yates. please don't let me down on the key scenes in deathly hallows. let the characters flirt and joke away during the filler scenes, but please, don't miss the mark when it comes to the dramatic moments.

[no, i was not wearing a wizard robe or holding a broomstick while writing this. i just really enjoy the books and think the series is brilliant.]