Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: The Movie!

Non-spoilers:

I really liked it. I hate to inflate people's expectations about things, because it's always a bummer when something isn't as good as you think it's going to be even if it's still good on its own merits. However, I have to admit that this is my new favorite Harry Potter movie. Yes, it has unseated Azkaban. It's scary, it's funny, it's sad . . . it's really good.

The biggest complaint about the movie in reviews (although the reviews are generally favorable) is that it doesn't have much of an independent plot; it's just sort of marking time before the end. And that's fairly true. On the other hand, is it actually a problem? As they pointed out on this podcast, this movie assumes that the viewer knows what's going on. It doesn't spend any time re-acquainting you with the characters, recapping what happened at the end of the last movie, or explaining concepts to you. It just does its Harry Potter thing, because if you have any desire to know what's going on, then you already do. So why is it problematic to have a movie that just moves the overarching story along?

The acting is the best it's been so far. Emma Watson toned it down (which is a good thing); Daniel Radcliffe is very good and at times very, very funny; Jim Broadbent surpassed my expectations as Slughorn--he was a treasure; and Neal liked second Dumbledore a lot more in this one (although I've always liked second Dumbledore, so I didn't really notice a difference). Oh, and the girl who plays Ginny very nearly almost gave her character a personality, which is an improvement.

On a more general note, there are always Harry Potter book fans who complain that they cut to much out of the movies. This, in my view, is as useless as complaining that you went to see the movie at the theater and it was just too loud. There are some obvious constants about movies and one is this: there can't be as much in there as there is in a book. There can't.

For instance, the most exact book-to-movie/TV adaptation I can think of is How the Grinch Stole Christmas. You know, the good one. The cartoon Grinch is basically identical to the movie Grinch (well, except for the songs). So a half-hour of film basically translates into 64 pages . . . that are mostly filling with drawings. And you think, you really think, that people would be able to make an under three-hour film out of a 652-page book without cutting huge swathes of it out? That's entirely unrealistic.

I think they did a pretty good job deciding what to and what not to cut, but I'll go into more detail on that below.

Spoilers, or at least specifics, follow after the break.




As to the cutting: the central plot of the book, in my view, is Harry's learning about Voldemort. There's very little (proportionally speaking) of that in the movie. I think they had to decide whether it was going to be a movie about Voldemort, with Harry in a passive role, or whether it was going to be about Harry doing stuff, even though that part isn't as cohesive. And I can't fault them for choosing the latter--after all, it's a Harry Potter movie. On the other hand, I can't say I would have made the same choice, especially considering how important Harry's knowledge of Voldemort becomes in the final book. I assume that will make the last two movies trickier to handle, but we'll just have to find out.

One book-to-movie difference that stood out was in Dumbledore's last stand--in the book, Dumbledore magically paralyzes Harry to keep him from intervening in the fight; in the movie, Harry just stands there of his own volition. It seemed a little troubling, EXCEPT! The reason Harry ends up not doing anything right there at the end is because Snape comes up and indicates that Harry should be quiet, as if assuring Harry that he's going to take care of everything. Harry's confidence in Snape is boosted at the moment because Dumbledore had just told him to go get Snape, that Snape's was the only help he, Dumbledore, wanted. And this means that for Harry, when Snape kills Dumbledore, there's an extra level of Snape betrayal. And that's pretty awesome.

So, my favorite part (at least on first viewing) was when Harry and Hermione were at the Slug Club dinner and Slughorn is asking Hermione what her parents do; she's like "They're dentists" and all the other wizards have a look of "smuh?" on their faces, while Daniel Radcliffe, over at the side of the shot, looks like, "Yeah, awesome. Dentists!" That doesn't describe it very well, but seriously. He was so funny right there. (The rest of the dentist conversation is also a hoot.)

Of course, Radcliffe was even funnier in the Felix Felicis scene. That's probably my favorite scene in the book, and I was surprised that the movie managed to live up to it. OH MAN. SO FUNNY.

And one final word on the greatness of Jim Broadbent--I didn't like Horace Slughorn in the book. He was a weasel. But Broadbent managed to incorporate the weasellyness, mix it with the timidity that is also present in book-Slughorn, and produce a Horace Slughorn that is not just sympathetic, but actually loveable. I loved him. And Broadbent is such a good actor--you could never confuse Slughorn with, say, Bridget Jones's dad, not because of hair or makeup, but just because of the way the actor held his face to play the part. He's SO GOOD.

Well, I know I'm forgetting tons of stuff, but I'll just wrap it up here. Suffice it to say, I really, really liked this movie.