Monica's Media Madness - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

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Dec 7, 2009, 5:43pm

Monica's Media Madness :: Theater :: Movie Reviews :: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

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Monica / Ginny
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Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
« Thread Started on Jul 25, 2009, 8:33am »

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE (PG)

I am finally writing my review for the newest installment for the Harry Potter movies. This is the 6th installment of the series. This was one of my most anticipated movies to see this year and when they had postponed it from Nov. 2008 to July 2009 I was not happy about that. I was ready to see this movie in November and having to wait another 8 months really upset me. Waiting those 8 long months really made me anticipate Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince more then usual.

I went and saw Half Blood Prince (HBP) on July 15th at a midnight showing. I made sure I got to the theater early so that I had a good seat. My son's friend Kevin went with me since he wanted to see it and no one else wanted to see a midnight showing. I watched the people as they came into the show theater. I was surprised to see young children there, meaning children at about 8 or 9 years of age. Those that have watched the Harry Potter movies will have noticed how the movies have started to get darker as the series progresses. It did surprise me that they would give HBP a PG rating when the Order of the Phoenix(5) and Goblet of Fire(4) were both rated PG-13. How you can have the next movie rated PG is a sure sign that the movie isn't going to be as dark as it should be or that they are just trying to make more money.

I sat through a 2 hours and 33 minutes for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Do I think it was time well spent? Yes and no. Yes because it is a book series that I have been anticipating to see in movie format for awhile. No, I will get to later. Now those that have watched the previous 5 movies will know that Harry is a boy or now I should say young man wizard that was attacked by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort when he was just a baby. Harry survived that attack while both his parents died.

The Half Blood Prince is when we start learning more about Lord Voldemort and how he became who he is today. Harry learns about Tom Riddle, who is Lord Voldemort, when he was just a boy. We are taken into the past by Prof. Dumbledore to learn about Tom Riddle. Harry and Voldemort have things in common such as both were orphans but for very different reasons. Those scenes are superb and well acted by all parties.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the movie where more of the lesser known characters get placed center stage. They are an integral part of this movie. Some of those characters are: Ron Weasley (always been behind Harry now shines with some great one liners and wonderfully choreographed Quidditch playing), Draco Malfoy (he is the one that Harry keeps an eye on in this book), Severus Snape (is he on the good side or bad side). There are more but they didn't get the action I thought they would.

I enjoyed the Half Blood Prince but I don't feel it was as good as it could have been. There should have been more action and fighting in this movie. I felt that it was rushed and action was just placed in there to make it entertaining. The movie was centered too much around the budding romances of Harry, Ginny and Ron, Hermione. This movie is suppose to be about who is the Half Blood Prince. Harry first learns about the Half Blood Prince when he is able to take potions when a new teacher (Prof. Slughorn) takes over the potions class. Ron and Harry do not have text books for Advanced Potions so they have to take some from the cupboard. Harry gets the one that belongs to the Half Blood Prince and everything changes for Harry then. He becomes a great potion maker with some help found in the book. This was not shown in the movie as much as it should have been. It was mentioned only once about trying to find out who it was. (You do find out by the end of the movie who the HBP is)

Ron played by Rupert Grint was fantastic with his scenes. He does a great job of playing a love stricken, nervous teenage boy. His body movements and lines make you laugh as the scene around him continues. Draco played by Tom Felton shines as he has been chosen to perform a task for the Dark Lord. You start to see his bravado falling apart. He talks the talk but can he walk the walk.... Severus played by Alan Rickman is superb and I felt under used in this movie.

I was expecting a fantastic fight scene between Harry, the Death Eaters, Severus Snape and some of Dumbledore's Army. I was saddened when that did not happen. All you had was Harry running after Severus and the Death Eaters yelling to Severus, "He trusted you!!" and then a few spells but not the climactic end I was expecting. All the other movies have had a fight scene of some caliber at the before the end of the movie. This did not happen and I felt made this movie less spectacular then it should have been.

This movie left me feeling blah at the end. I know it is sad at the end but I am not anticipating the next movie like I have with the previous ones. I am not wanting to see the last movie. I feel that the movie ended on a very sour note. This is suppose to be the beginning of the end for either Harry or Lord Voldemort. Harry is suppose to be feeling anger and resentment and love all at the same time. I just didn't get that from this movie. I just got the feeling that the producers didn't want to over shine the last movie. I don't feel this movie could have done that even if all the action had been in the movie. Each Harry Potter movie has had action at the end and none of that has ruined the next movie it has just made the audience anticipate the next installment more.

I would love to give this movie a wonderful grade but in all honesty I think it deserves about a B- or C. I would only give it about 3 stars. I think you should go see the movie but not more then once.

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Mistic♥Edward
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Edward enough said.

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Re: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
« Reply #1 on Sept 17, 2009, 5:39pm »

I took my son,daughter, and young granddaughter to the drive-in to see it i loved it but its one of my fav books i didnt get to watch it as good as i would have liked to cause the baby didnt want to stay in the van..lol anyways what i did watch of it was good not the best one ive seen cause they did alot more changes to this one then they did the others or i feel like they did.
So im ready to watch it again i own all the books and movies so ill be getting this one for sure. lol

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Monica / Ginny
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Re: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
« Reply #2 on Sept 18, 2009, 10:58am »

I am glad to see some one comment on this movie. It is a shame that you were not able to watch the movie as much as you wanted to. I too will most likely buy the DVD but not sure if I will be overly excited about it. I am hoping that there are scenes shown on the DVD that were cut from the movie.

I too own all the books, in multiple copies for some of them, and the DVDs for all the movies thus far. I love this series and think it has been fantastically written and up to this point wonderfully converted to film. I just hope the last movie has all the action and adventure and gets the rating it should get which to me should be about PG-13 or R in the USA.

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