July 15 2009.
Disclaimer: I am a major fan of the Harry Potter books!!
So I went to the midnight Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince show last night (well, very early this morning technically, lol), and since then have been asked by a few people what I thought about it, and whether or not I liked it. I found that I couldn’t fully answer their question in just one sentence or one simple ‘yes or no’ or ‘I LOVED it’ or ‘I HATED it’ response, so I decided I would jot down my thoughts in the form of this blog post and direct people to it the next time they ask! Hehe.
Basically this is what I have been telling people:
The good:
- I loved Draco Malfoy scenes and thought Tom Felton did an excellent job. I thought the way Draco’s plan with the Vanishing Cabinet scenes progressed was great and well-done.
- I loved little Tom Riddle and teenage Tom Riddle scenes and thought those two actors did an excellent job. In fact all the pensieve scenes were top-notch.
- I loved Fred and George and liked the scene with their joke shop. I wish they had gotten more screen time/lines in this movie!
- I love Ron!!! Adorable. And his arms are quite nice in this movie as well. Lol.
- Staying on the superficial theme for one more bullet point, I think the actor who played Cormac McClaggen was totally cute too.
- I loved when Harry was on the Felix Felicis (Liquid Luck). Hilarious.
- Luna Lovegood was the best part of the last movie to me, and she carries on being awesome in this movie. I love her and I love the actress who plays her. Fantastically quirky and great delivery of lines. Plus she’s totally cute and when the lion was on her head I was LOL-ing.
- Dumbledore’s fire magic scene in the cave was awesome. Loved it.
- Ron and Hermione holding hands in the hospital bed. Super cute.
- There were actually quite a bit of laugh-out-loud scenes, so that was good.
The bad:
- Ginny Weasley.
- The actress who plays Ginny Weasley.
- Ginny and Harry’s super awkward “romance” scenes, both the body language and the dialogue and the delivery of the dialogue such as:
- Ginny saying Harry’s shoe is untied so she leans down to tie it for him. WTF?
- Ginny feeding food to Harry, and saying ‘Don’t you trust me?’ WTF?
- Ginny kissing Harry, then saying they can keep that kiss up there if he wants. WTF?
- Harry’s overall awkwardness as well.
- Hermione’s freakout with the poor birds.
- Ron staring at Lavender and somehow that is causing it to snow. Huh?
- Most of the acting, but I’ve never thought the acting in any of the Harry Potter films was too terrific.
- And the fact that they MADE UP a scene that was completely irrelevant and had no purpose and could have included an extra actual scene from the book instead of the pointless one that they did include.
Basically, I thought that the movie did a good job of telling the essential plot (the Horcruxes/getting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, Dumbledore’s death, etc), but the cringe-worthiness of the extremely awkward relationship/romance scenes totally killed the movie for me. To me, Harry Potter films have never been movie brilliance and the acting has never been incredible. If I was watching the movies without any knowledge of the books, I would probably think the movies are terrible. Since I do read the books and love the books, I’ve always been super excited about watching the movies regardless of their suckery, same goes for this most recent one. It’s really exciting seeing books you’ve read translated onto the big screen.
I know that the movie got pretty good reviews though, and some people have been telling me they think it’s the best Harry Potter film to date. I don’t know if I’m just taking the awkwardness between Harry and Ginny more seriously than everyone else, but it really was just really awkward to watch and it’s the first thing I think of when I think about the movie now.
Still, it was the first midnight show I’ve ever attended and it was super dorky exciting to see people dressed up and carrying wands or robes or with lightning bolts drawn on their foreheads and the audience in the theatre I was in, all clapped and cheered when the movie began which is yes, super dorky, but I loved it! Despite some random and poorly-performed scenes/dialogue, it was still entertaining to watch and held my attention into the wee hours of early morning. Just, seriously… Ginny needs to go. I mean, not going to happen clearly (sigh), but oh my gosh she is so awkward. And I think if the movie avoided its romantic relationship focus, it would have been that much better. I also am quite sure they didn’t include a ton of great stuff that was from the book but it’s honestly been so long since I’ve read HBP that I can’t complain about that because I don’t remember what was left out really, lol. /slightHPfanfail.
And honestly, despite any disappointments I have for this film, I’m still sooooooo excited to see the remaining two!!! (Because the final book is being split into two separate movies let’s remember).
Also, I love the twinkly Harry Potter music in the opening. Always gets me so excited.
So, what did you think of the movie? :D
Linda (:
3 Comments
You stole every single thought I had about this movie! Haha. I think what upset me most, besides Dan Radcliffe getting the shaft and working with the atrocious Bonnie Wright, was the scene of the Weasley house burning down. I would have traded that for the Hogwarts Battle at the end or any one of the Pensieve memories that they skipped out on. :)
Wow, I personally thought the Harry/Ginny was very very well done but the Ron/Hermione/lavender was OTT and akward beyond belief.
Oh and honestly, I think the actress playing Luna needs to go. She’s too weird and forced and akward completely misses Luna’s essence. iMO.