Monday, August 3, 2009

Review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Why break with tradition you know. That’s the feeling I had when I troop in to watch the sixth film in the Harry Potter series. I’ve seen all the rest already, why stop now? I was doing the film a disservice because Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is in my view turned out to be the best film in the series.

For starters, Harry Potter films usually starts with Harry going to Hogwarts, have his adventure and ends the year the same way as he started. Despite his adventures, Harry always starts the year with all the major players in play. Not this time. At the end of this film, some things will change. A betrayal and a death change things for the future.

That is just one of the reason why I think this is the best film in the series. The beginning of the Half-Blood Prince was good and it was a visual treat seeing the attacks on both the Muggle and Wizard worlds. The characters also grow with age and the film is suddenly more than all about Harry. This is especially true for Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton). The film is also darker and grimmer than the films before it and director David Yates made a smart choice covering the film in blue and yellow. It gives the film a style that was sorely lacking in the previous films.

That’s not saying the film is perfect mind you. Some parts of the film didn’t mesh well. For a dark movie, the end when Harry, Ron and Hermione look at sunset was strangely uplifting. It was like they suddenly decided that they can’t end a movie like this and has to go search for a happy ending. It just didn’t suit the film at all. Also some parts of the plot were not explained. If Voldemort trust Snape so much, why did he give the assignment to Malfoy instead of Snape? I guess Snape is called the Half-Blood Prince because he was half Muggle; it’s a guess because it was never explained clearly in the film. Another thing is that the series of events make me think Severus Snape (Alan Rickman in excellent form again) might not be the villain he was made out to be, even after the finish. If this is the case, I’ll be sorely disappointed because it was too easy. It just seems too obvious to me.

Overall, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a good film which is clearly superior to the films that came before it. It’s not the greatest you’ll ever see but it is good and highly watchable.

5 comments:

Gar said...

From reading this post, I can only assume that you have not read the books.

It's interesting reading reviews of the movies from people that have only watched the movies (no books).

When I watch the movies, I have a tendency to "fill in the blanks" when the movie leaves stuff out.

I watched the movie yesterday. I'd tend to agree that it is probably the best one yet. In fact, I was quite pleased with it until the final battle. In the book, it was a huge fight with Snape on the side of the Death Eaters.

It wasn't just a quiet little standoff in the tower followed by an uncontested raid through the countryside.

Ghost said...

Yeah, I haven't read Half-Blood Prince or Deathly Hollows yet. Read the rest after seeing the movies and found most of them (outside the first) to be pretty boring. Some were outright poor even. But maybe I will read Half-Blood Prince or Deathly Hollows after the movies comes out

Anonymous said...

Agree totally with Gar. You soo totally have NOT read the book.

Please take note that the movie is based ON the book and not the other way round, and neither was it fresh from s screenwriters' mind.

Want to know the loose ends??

Go read the book.

Ghost said...

Uh...isn't that a problem. If you go see a movie, the movie should explain itself. You shouldn't have to go read the book to understand the movie or fill up plot-holes. If you have to, then it says a lot about the movie.

Zenebi said...

I've the last 2 books. Call me if you want to borrow them.