Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: No Way Weasley Shouldn’t Be All Over that Granger Chic

Posted by ScuzzBuster

July 16, 2009

In the desperate rush to adapt all the Harry Potter novels before the stars of this popular film series become grandparents we’ve come to the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I have mixed feelings about this film series. I’ve never read one word of any of the books, but I understand the obsession of original fantasy/sci-fi works on young minds. I thought the first film, was quite good. The Chamber of Secrets was a rather bland follow up in my assessment and kind of what I expected. A good start followed by progressively less exciting followups until the money train finally dries up. I was wrong. I was actually surprised at how good Goblet of Fire was, best of the three. Progressively, every film in the series since has gotten better.

At least until now. Don’t get me wrong, I think that The Half-Blood Prince is a pretty damned fine film. But I’m not sure it really tops Order of the Pheonix as far as sheer entertainment value. One of the things that I really appreciate about the Potter series is the fact that the films seem to be maturing along with their target audience. Progressively, each film gets considerably darker in tone. Order of the Phoenix really impressed with me how psychotically dark it got. In the end though, The Half-Blood Prince proved to me how emotionally uninvolved with the characters I’ve actually become to this point.

As much as admire the series, and have to consider it one of the highest quality and most consistently successful film series in recent years, the current outing dials the entire series down to a point where my lack of excitement and attachment to the characters started to make the film drag over it’s 2 hour and 30 minute run time.

hbp1 I have really no sympathy or real investment in Harry. Basically, not only is he screwed, he’s finally just resigned himself to be the pawn of the old wizards that are counting on him to basically be the savior at some point. Emma Watson, while getting increasingly jail-baity and hot as Hermoine Granger is really starting to just irritate the crap out of me. I guess since I haven’t read the novels, I simply have gotten to the point with her and Ron that I can’t really accept the sitution.

hbp2 First, as a pretty hot chic, why in world would she be romantically interested in the increasingly goofy looking and bumbling Ron, who just seems to be getting more homely and bumbling with each passing film. But more importantly, I can’t in any way shape or form accept that the homely, goofy-looking and awkward Ron would not be jumping her bones at the first hint that she actually was interested in him. I’m an old bastard myself these days, but I still remember clearly my high school days when basically the only criteria a teenage boy would have for pursuing a hot girl would be even a weak rumor that she liked you first. Can’t buy it.

Now what’s the deal with Ron’s increasingly hot sister? I get the feeling that partaking of these flicks every year or two rather than reading the novels is leaving me in some zone just a couple of sandwiches short of the picnic I need to be attending that would give me the full story of how or why all this fits together. By the end of The Half-Blood Prince, I got the feeling that the entire realm of character development of these increasingly adult looking kids was really short changed by having the film make the assumption that the viewer has more familiarity with the character dynamics than the casual admirer of the film series can actually get from simply watching the films.

hbp3 This is where Half-Blood Prince left me a tad cold. I felt that they dwelled just a bit much on inside info a reader and fan would have versus a person that saw the last film a year or so ago. This was a personal detriment to my enjoyment of this film because it is an extremely slow moving story that is a bit tired because it does follow the established formula of the other films: The situation continues to get dire, Harry thinks it may be too dangerous or useless to go back to school until he convinced by Dumbledore or some other event or wizard that convinces him it’s important. Meanwhile, there’s new professor at Hogwarts who’s presences ends up being a key to the events about to unfold as events and mysteries continue to surround the true nature and motivations of Rickman’s Professor Snape. As tiresome as the formula can get, Rickman’s the man and is a huge factor in the success of the films for me.

The other character that keeps me motivated as the films move on in the same formula is the ongoing saga of Draco Malfoy, who has moved on from being an annoying foil in the early chapters of the Potter Saga to finally, in my assessment, becoming a very interesting piece of story and in the current installment we got Tom Felton’s best performance yet in the role. I have all sorts of thoughts of how this should play out, but open speculation of how this saga should end is completely irrelevant since the saga basically ended a year ago and I’m just too lazy to find out how without seeing it on the screen first.

hbp4 Still, as the Half-Blood Prince comes to a close, I think we’re treated to basically an overly long set up for the final chapter (or chapters since the final book will be split into two films). It’s a vital set up and bridge I’m sure, but it is by no means a fast moving, particularly exciting, or action oriented film in this series. There’s very little here besides gloom and doom, which I certainly respect as tool of telling the story, but as the credits rolled, I think I would have walked out considerably more “satisfied” with the experience had we managed to bring this thing home in 120 minutes rather than 150 minutes. In addition, we have the Potter series continued tendency to thrown name actors to the wolves by giving them virtually nothing interesting to due. This time, Helena Bonham Carter is the latest victim to get paraded on and off screen three or four times with nothing to do.

Probably all unfair criticism for a film which I feel continues an unprecedented string of not only successful, but actually well made, thoughtful movies. Perhaps the credit goes to JK Rowling herself for telling a story that does manage to maintain an intriguing saga year after year. The Potter series does maintain a commitment to excellence and extends that with this movie. I’m sure young fans of the Potter books will eat this film up. Fans of the movie series will find it a satisfactory continuation of the saga, but for anyone else, The Half-Blood Prince is absolutely the wrong place to start if you’re a virgin to the series as a whole. This is definitely a world that doesn’t lend itself well to jumping in fresh when over half the complete story has already been told. I have few complaints about the film besides the length and some of the character issues I mentioned above. It’s a pretty solid summer movie that still manages to keep me just motivated enough to want to see how this thing turns out in 2010 and 2011. If you see me on the street, don’t tell me!

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