Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Jul. 16th, 2009 01:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_divided...is at least 70% romantic comedy. David Yates (the director) has excellent comic timing!
Overall impressions:
1. Hermione is still the hottest thing on screen. Ginny really can't compete, poor thing.
2. Rupert Grint is actually a really good actor! I hadn't realized because the scriptwriter never gives Ron enough to do.
3. Dan Radcliff is still the weakest link, but he was fun to watch in the good-luck-potions-make-Harry-feel-invincible scenes (and he obviously had fun performing them, too).
4. Jim Broadbent was PERFECT as Professor Slughorn, whoever made that casting call deserves a medal.
Slughorn's Christmas Party (where Hermione is like: I'll date this guy because it will annoy Ron the most) and the multiple love triangles were deftly handled. As in, they weren't painful... You don't even feel too badly when Ron ditches Lavender, Hermione ditches whathisface, and Ginny ditches Dean. Maybe because the the director doesn't show any of the ditched parties looking specifically hurt - only Lavender gets a reaction shot and she's more humiliated and angry than hurt.
Harry has something to DO in this movie!! Not just in the last half hour!!! I've complained before about the way that Rowling's books cram in so much stuff, whether or not it's necessary, that the reader becomes distracted and fails to notice that important events happen to Harry Potter, not because of Harry Potter. Which was always a major problem with the movies, right: strip away the extra stuff and the problems with the plotting + passivity of the main character become apparent.
But in this book he's given a mission by Dumbledore - find out what Slugworth knows - and he goes about in a fairly competent, or at least fairly active, way - though still with a large helping of luck, literal in this case XD. Still, Harry having a concrete goal to accomplish made me happy. It gave the movie a sense of direction and lessened the - sudden climax from nowhere! - pacing of the earlier books/movies.
My favorite thing about this movie, though, is the way the trio's scenes - even when they're discussing something serious they do it together in front of a fireplace, surrounded by warmth, light, color, and cozy Oriental rugs - are contrasted with scenes of Draco striding, ALONE, through cold, dark, gray, uncarpeted hallways. Even before the Infamous Bathroom Scene I felt sorry for him, a lot more than I did when I was reading the books.
In conclusion Rotten Tomatoes was right to score this movie so highly.
Overall impressions:
1. Hermione is still the hottest thing on screen. Ginny really can't compete, poor thing.
2. Rupert Grint is actually a really good actor! I hadn't realized because the scriptwriter never gives Ron enough to do.
3. Dan Radcliff is still the weakest link, but he was fun to watch in the good-luck-potions-make-Harry-feel-invincible scenes (and he obviously had fun performing them, too).
4. Jim Broadbent was PERFECT as Professor Slughorn, whoever made that casting call deserves a medal.
Slughorn's Christmas Party (where Hermione is like: I'll date this guy because it will annoy Ron the most) and the multiple love triangles were deftly handled. As in, they weren't painful... You don't even feel too badly when Ron ditches Lavender, Hermione ditches whathisface, and Ginny ditches Dean. Maybe because the the director doesn't show any of the ditched parties looking specifically hurt - only Lavender gets a reaction shot and she's more humiliated and angry than hurt.
Harry has something to DO in this movie!! Not just in the last half hour!!! I've complained before about the way that Rowling's books cram in so much stuff, whether or not it's necessary, that the reader becomes distracted and fails to notice that important events happen to Harry Potter, not because of Harry Potter. Which was always a major problem with the movies, right: strip away the extra stuff and the problems with the plotting + passivity of the main character become apparent.
But in this book he's given a mission by Dumbledore - find out what Slugworth knows - and he goes about in a fairly competent, or at least fairly active, way - though still with a large helping of luck, literal in this case XD. Still, Harry having a concrete goal to accomplish made me happy. It gave the movie a sense of direction and lessened the - sudden climax from nowhere! - pacing of the earlier books/movies.
My favorite thing about this movie, though, is the way the trio's scenes - even when they're discussing something serious they do it together in front of a fireplace, surrounded by warmth, light, color, and cozy Oriental rugs - are contrasted with scenes of Draco striding, ALONE, through cold, dark, gray, uncarpeted hallways. Even before the Infamous Bathroom Scene I felt sorry for him, a lot more than I did when I was reading the books.
In conclusion Rotten Tomatoes was right to score this movie so highly.