Movie Review: Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince
STONE HERE, and it is no secret how much I dig Harry Potter. It took me a little while to write this review of The Half Blood Prince because not only is it my favorite of all the books, I was really waiting for this movie. As the next movie in the franchise movie, it kicks ass. As a fan of the books, it leaves me wanting more. I felt cheated actually.
Half Blood Prince was a big turning point in the series. It didn’t hold any punches and was well thought out. The book I mean. The movie tries really hard to do the same, but it gets bogged down with shoving the theme of being in love in our faces. We get it, the kids are growing up and discovering hair where there wasn’t any before and what not. But what this movie did was go far overboard with it. Every time you turn around it’s ‘love this’ and ‘love that’. It got kinda annoying.
I guess my only other big gripe is that they dumbed this movie down from the source. It is missing the intensity, the whole Half Blood Prince mystery, it just is missing that WOW factor the book had in spades. Instead of letting what Malfoy is doing remain a mystery, they lay it out for you every few minutes. Instead of Snape being the creep, they just make him out to be reluctant and good. Instead of the awesome Hogwarts vs the DeathEaters battle at the end, the Deatheaters just kinda destroy things for no reason. And the entire death at the end didn’t have the same impact. But I guess the saddest part is the deletion of the history of Tom Riddle, his family and where he came from. It develops the character of Voldemort so much.
See that Harry? That's a cash storm coming our way.
Taking the book out of the equation, this movie hums along really well. It does the franchise justice and ends on a great cliffhanger that leads into the final one(s). It is beautifully framed in every shot. Just amazing. And the cast is just always been awesome. Slughorn is just as I wanted him to be. But personally I can’t wait to see the return of Dolores Umbridge in the finale.
- The sets, the camera work
- The return of Qidditch. Yeah, it’s not for long but it’s there
- Greyback, even though they never say his freaking name!
- Helena Bohnam Carter is a perfect crazy person as Bellatrix
- Snape Vs Harry at the end was a joke. And cheesy. They really screwed this confrontation up big time
- The ‘look what’s going on’ dumbness that they insisted on putting in there
- They show a lot of characters, but some of their heart just seems to be gone. Like Hagrid, such a big part of the books is just cameo status now.
- I could have sworn Aragog was a hell of a lot bigger in Chamber of Secrets
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Well, all in all it’s a great movie. It appeals to a lot of people, which is why I don’t classify it as a GamerDad review. The theatre was mostly adults anyways. I feel cheated in the end. I don’t know if it is because I love the book so much, or that I know what’s coming that explains why everything went down the way it did in this movie. I know books are always better than the movies. The Harry Potter movies have had a tendancy not to disappoint at all, despite the omissions. My wife has never read the books and sees the movies as they are and she loves them. I watch the movies and wonder what happened to S.P.E.W. and the little things like that that really had no reason to be omitted. I do like this movie, don’t get me wrong, but I was expecting so much more from it.
Reasons why Dumbledore is the man over Gandalf - He does real magic unlike Gandalf's 'I got a glowing stick and that's about it' magic.
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WTF??!! do u really think Dumbledore is better than Gandalf? Are you out of u’r mind?!
Read this first and then decide who is the better wizard: http://gandalfmaiar.blogspot.com/
P.S: I like the review, but I don’t like u’r opinion about Gandalf
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this movie was not as bad as the order of the phoenix the problem really was the fact that way too many thing was lift out you and add it in. it did not follow the book anymore
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the movie was down right trash. The movie was all lovey dovey and did really follow the story line. The end was disappointing, because their was no epic battle scene at the end. all i know is the deathly hallows better show up or i will be angry. P.S. Emma Watson looked even hotter in this movie than before
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Well joe, it IS 2 hours and 30 min. long. Not many ten-year-olds are going to sit through a 3+ hour movie just so most of the details from the book could be fit in the movie. Don’t get me wrong, i thought there were some important elements from the book that were left out from the film. But, these cash-storm movies aimed toward kids have to have a demographic appeal to make money, so they throw in the love bullshit. I really just watched it to see how it corresponded with the book, and it was lackluster.
By the way, Aragog WAS fucking bigger! How the hell was he shrunk down so small?? I was in disbelief by that incontinence…
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er, Stone, not Joe…
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Screw the kids and their tiny attention spans! Harry Potter was an epic tale that should of been a 3+ hour movie. Same goes for 4,5 and 7, or at least do a two parter for six because it was my favorite book and the movie should have been epic but it was only good.
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The Half-Blood Prince was actually my favorite in the series from a movie standpoint, rather then a book adaption. As a book adaption, it is ok, they added a few unnecessary scenes to the main story but when you just look at it as a movie, it is wonderful. The visual style and the darker tone did give the Half-Blood Prince a great look. The love stories do tend to drag but the movie more then makes up for it with all the Draco Malfoy scenes and the impressive cave scene. One of the elements that really drew me into this movie was its musical score. Nicholas Hooper did a fantastic job scoring the film.
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I definitely have to agree with Joe on this one. I personally really liked it, but yeah it left alot of stuff out. It seems likes its reading the story compared to the 2 hour montage that was Order of the Phoenix. Slughorn was FLAWless. He was exactly what I wanted him to be. I did find this movie’s twists to be far less subtle than the book, although if you made it all the way to the movie without hearing that Dumbledore dies, you must be putting away some Felix if you know what i mean. I’ll watch them all to the end, after reading all the books, but I have low expectations. Breaking Deathly Hallows into two is gonna make for one boring movie and one fucking badass movie. The first half of the book was really just Harry Potter and the Emo Camping trip, but i’m looking forward to the last installment. I give the movie a 7 out of 10. This is The Joe Soldier, at ease. OOH RAH!
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What i love about movies is not just the dialog or special effects but the way it is presented to you on screen…. i liked the style of this movie. One of my favorite parts was when Ron was making out with that crazy girls in the stairway tower before having the camera moving away to Malfoy standing on the ledge of the castle and then back to a horizon shot (i think).
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“… because not only is it my favorite of all the books…”
Fail.
You, sir, fail at life.
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To me it just felt like DC’s Countdown, only not as bad.
6/10
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I saw this movie today, i am going to keep it simple and say i really enjoyed but it did have some BAD points and some GOOD points.
The good
1. All what Stone said
2. All the fights
3. Luna is hot and amazing made me laugh and still find her hot with her voice and her strange clothing
The Bad
1. Part of the ending
2. Love thing, that creepy Girl who likes Ron
3. Jinny omg i liked her before but in this one it was horrible and boring
that is all.
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I just saw this movie yesterday. First let me get off my chest that I felt the movie was horrible at being a movie based on a book. They literally threw in about a half hour of BS and left out scenes that the author had written so clearly that they could have been used as a screenplay in and of themselves.
That being said, I actually felt this was a good movie. The vast majority of the filming and editing was top notch, the horribly done special effects from the first movie have long since been thrown out the window, and there are a good number of scenes faithfully recreated from the books. However, there were some definite flaws in the film. The movie would at times jump ahead in a scene that made it feel like the editor didn’t care what was going on and wanted it to be over as soon as possible. The climax is incredibly anti-climatic, with almost no time whatsoever being spent on the world changing event at the end of the film.
The thing that I think has bugged me about this movie as well as the past 3 is the role of Dumbledore. I honestly have no idea what they were thinking when they recast him. The original Dumbledore understood the role and brought a caring yet eccentric personality to him that mirrored the books. In this new portrayal of him the actor has no subtlety and sounds like he is reading the lines off of a cue card. He has a way of taking lines and making himself sound like the most pompous and arrogant man on the face of the earth.
So excepting that one casting choice and the issues listed above, I would say the movie was good, it did have some excellent effects and the writing for the most part, including the bits that were made up by the screenwriter, was well done. I would recommend this movie to anyone who has either not read the books or is able to put aside previous knowledge and enjoy a good summer flick.
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Well i havent seen it yet but my friend told me they missed out alot me and him have both read it and he said the part at the end were Dumbledore dies he told me it was nothing like it was in the book from wat i heard i would rate it 5 but i should see it this week and tell you wat i thought of it
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Everyone says i should have rated it lower, but all of the HP movies have been really good, and like i said if you take the book out of the equation then it is a bad ass movie. I think the biggest problem is that when the book hit, it was a big event, a giant dramatic read, but now we all know the rest of the story from Deathly Hollows so the drama doesnt have as much impact as it did when we read the book.
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I recently got into this series thanks to my wife constantly pushing me to do so, and just finished this book right before I saw the movie. I have to say that I was very dissapointed with this one. I mean I know that they can’t fit the whole book into the movie, but a lot of the things that I was looking forward to seeing weren’t there. They changed things that didn’t need to be changed, left out things that should have been included, and in my book this movie does not even come close to an 8 out of 10. Now Order of the Phoenix, that was a faithful adaptation. This was not even close.
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About dumbeldore I say “True dat True dat”
I saw the movie yesterday and I enjoyed it, I would give it the same score heh, I liked tom riddle in the bits he was in, *sigh* poor little emo kid.
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i really enjoyed this movie
maybe my favourite in the series so far
tho im disapointed they cut out some of the epic battlez
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Funny for me the Half Blood Prince was the book i liked the least in the franchise… they simply killed Voldemort character for me… learning that he was what he was from incest have make him somekind of joke in my book instand of the evil overlord genious i thook he was in the 5 first books
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“they simply killed Voldemort character for me… learning that he was what he was from incest have make him somekind of joke”. Dude, did you read the same book we all did? Voldemort was the son of a muggle that his mother bewitched to fall in love with her. Not incest.
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