Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Review

Sorry for the delay but someone else wanted to co review, then became too busy so heres my thoughts on HP 6:


Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Review
To start with I have read every single book repeatedly, so I understand the story. I have liked all the movies for different reasons, but does Half Blood Prince keep interest in the franchise? Yes, quite well.

I want to emphasize the pacing of this movie, it was very good. It has its talking moments, its action moments, and its fantasy moments. The story is cut down very carefully and got the messages of the book across very well as far as I saw, and even though the trailers and the book highlights teen romance a bit, the movie didn’t end up having a bunch of pointless romance moments. Director David Yates managed to drop small snippets of the love interests without it being distracting, a few were a cause or effect of an important story moment. Oh they exist in the movie for a good 20 minutes, but they do it more for humor than for anything else.
What they managed to change about the book that was kind of stupid and yet effective was the anticipated moment between Snape and Dumbledore. At first I was annoyed with how they changed it, but I still found they kept the mysteriousness of Snape’s motives good. Another commendable trait is that the movie had a moment in the cave where suspense was built up, and yet completely caught everyone in the theatre off guard to the point of having all of us jump in our seats. I haven’t had that happen to me in like 3 years, that’s a feat to be commended on.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and can’t criticize much. But if I had to, I’d have to say the last 15 minutes which is pretty much the ending had me a little ticked off. The funeral that ended the book was not there, and what we got instead to “pay tribute” to a character was kind of lame and too quick. It ended fine, but the first part or so of reckoning of the ending was pretty bad. Also, just because I liked that they retained the mysteriousness of Snape’s motives doesn’t mean I’ll forgive the logic leaps when he meets Dumbledore in his office. It was pretty stupid the way the characters behaved in that scene before something anticipated from book readers happens.

I also happened to hate some of the ways they dealt with Draco Malfoy, no it was not his performance I had a problem with, but before Harry battled him it was like the director told him to run into the room and cry with almost no reason to. Granted be I understood, but non readers probably thought less of Malfoy’s pathetic crying scene and didn’t get the sudden amount of emotion.
Having said all of that, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is a good movie. It’s got great effects, good story, good fun moments, and leaves us with questions to ponder for the next movie.

I give it a 4 out of 5

G Force beats out Harry Potter?!

WHAT?!

You have got to be kidding me, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!

I'm speechless, that G force movie looked really dumb. But for it to topple Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in its second week is one of the biggest upsets this summer. G Force actually has Nicholas Cage in it, who I like, why he's in it..go figure.

I understand this movie was going to have an excited kid audience for how crazy it looks, but for it to have the audience it got considering all the other movie choices including Harry Potter, I don't get how it managed to be good enough for so many.

I don't know about you, but one true fact is that so many people can't be wrong about a movie being worth the watch. This argument really fails for movies lately considering the misery of seeing Meet the Spartans do so good last year. I desperately urge everyone who wonders if they should take their kids to this movie not to see the higher than expected attendance as a good thing.

Watch the Rotten Tomatoes meter, I bet you it isn't even 50 percent...Nope it isn't I just checked, its at 20 percent. Wow, anyone who paid to see this movie is getting ripped off. They pay the same price for a 20 percent rotten rated 90 minute movie about guinea pigs against Harry Potter, a 160 minute 80+ rotten rated movie with fantasy and magic. Harry Potter doesn't even sell in Imax till this week so it really failed to top out against stuff like G force.

Wow, what a bitter moment of this summer. Look I understand that it's good kids are flocking for entertainment, but remember that studios look at what succeeds in the movie theatre to get an idea of what to make and whether to make more of it.

6th Harry Potter movie breaks midnight record

Link

Geez I didn't expect Harry Potter to outgross the Dark Knight in midnight screenings, I didn't go. Then again, Warner Brothers pushed back the release of this movie because they wanted it to roll in more cash. It's crazy to imagine it outgrossed Star Wars Revenge of the Sith and Dark Knight, IGN also says that is without the IMAX ticket sales :O

The movie itself still needs more critical reaction to assume if the box office was hype or earned.

Midnight Showings Gross: over 22 million dollars

The Best Harry Potter Movie to Come?

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Trailer

^click before you read, please. =)

This movie is very significant, book wise many things get resolved or answered as to what will come of the wizarding world.

But behind Warner Brothers there are many things about this movie looking very good. Consider that the first two were charming and stylized nicely by Chris Columbus but had a general family friendliness. We never expected it'd go beyond that, but it did with the third movie which ended being the worst of the series. The fourth movie took on a more serious tone and allowed some maturity in the content, and we got to see one of the greatest nemesises called Lord Voldemort.

The fifth movie brought the final director to the franchise, David Yates, who did a good job considering the movie was more talk than action, and was also able to make the characters stronger. Steve Kloves who had written the first four screenplays could not fit in the fifth movie screenplay at the time, he is back now, and likely will put the series back in a comfort zone. So the movies have gotten better over time.

Warner Brothers had also delayed this movie from November to July so they could make more money, which really annoyed me. But considering WB doesn't ruin movies like Fox does, and they've been on a roll lately with the careful attention to production and proper utilization of time, i'll let it slide. Plus they answered the call, as seen in the trailer, for more quidditch :P

The Trailer looks fantastic, and that doesn't hurt either ;)

Release Date is July 17th 2009