harry potter hbp movie review
Before tackling the movie itself, I decided to do a bit of a background quasi-review on the source material, hence the length.
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I've always found the Half-Blood Prince to be the most problematic among Rowling's seven novels.
I've read somewhere that this novel, along with the second (CoS), are the densest in terms of plot and character development. This is true. The super-important concept of the Horcruxes is revealed. Alby also gets his last chance to "confess" to Harry the secrets that he had kept from him "all these long years" (my memory is to vague to be more specific at the moment), and ultimately passes on the baton of responsibility to Harry.
However, HBP suffers greatly from its weight that it becomes unwieldy and unfriendly to read. As part of the entire series, it is brilliant. But taken in isolation, it is a friggin lousy novel. In fact, I wrote a scathing review on HBP a few years back when it first came out: I called it "J.K. Rowling and the Half-Baked Novel", in which I found several things lacking in the book.
To wit:
1) The main villain doesn't put in an appearance, therefore no emotional or structural peak is reached.
2) NOTHING HAPPENS. The main narrative of the novel follows closely those of the previous books (i.e. the Hogwarts schoolyear calendar of summer-exposition-firstday-school routine-rising action-Xmas break-more school-spring-climax), but doesn't add anything new. It simply traces the skeletal backbone of the structure HP readers are already familiar with - but NOTHING OF RELEVANCE HAPPENS to maintain the interest of the reader.
3) The tone is different. Since the plot is more cerebral and explanatory than action-packed, Rowling has to sustain interest and inject humor through different means. She does this ineffectively through a cheap, tacky counterpoint: the unnecessarily detailed love lives of the teenage protagonists. The plot twists (i.e. the eponymous Half-Blood Prince's identity; Lupin and Tonks' love affair) are also quite shallow.
4) DUMBY'S DEATH. Much like some fangirls I know who gouged their eyes out after Sirius died in OTP, I was emotionally distraught at how Rowling killed Harry's mentor oh-so-sadistically, in my opinion. I mean DUH, he was the only guy in the entire friggin universe who was actually intelligent enough to do something productive to combat the evil dude. I was so enraged by the fact that I wasn't able to focus on the words in the page after that happened - in any rate it all became anticlimactic and increasingly moody and blah.
This rage was actually the impetus for my writing that scathing book review in the first place, and hating Rowling for a goodish while. Of course after I had sufficiently calmed down and gained some perspective on the whole series, I understood perfectly why it was logical for Dumbledore to die, in order for Harry to stand up and be a fucking man. The periwinkle apron strings had to be cut off some time.
---
This leads me to my movie review.
First of all, a caveat: I came in the cinema with no expectations whatsoever, and because I am a fan of the series, I took the movie (and this subsequent review of it) quite seriously. Plus I paid P190 to watch it on a Dolby Digital screen (the Gateway cinema with the post-modern shiny chairs in front of it, next to the Timezone Arena). Alone. On a school night. Alone. P190. So everything I type from here on out is naturally and irrevocably BIASED.
First, the good stuff: The characterization really stands out. Luna is still loopy and ethereal. Emma Watson is eye-candy. Ron is still the comic relief. Bellatrix is MAD MAD MAD (and fuckin ozam). But Tom Felton is the ultimate WIN. He hasn't been given much chance to shine in the previous films, and now it is revealed that he can ACT. (Or at least look like he's constipated half the time, for reasons that were surprisingly undisclosed. WTF was he doing crying in that bathroom?!)
As for Dan, uhhh. @_@ I have no words for someone whose main method of acting is clenching his jaws. Come on already. But I reeeeally couldn't get enough of the Felix Felicis sequence. *Poof!* HAHAHA. The entire audience was laughing out loud. Not to mention that the Aragog scene was beautifully shot. Conclusion: Dan does comedy best. Or at least he acts best when he's not taking himself and his role too seriously.
I think people are bashing the movie for the same reasons that I bashed the book. Some of the legitimate comments I've heard so far: it was too ponderous (David apparently slept through it several times), too teeny-bopper, too WTF ENUF WIT DA TEENY ROMANCE ALREADY, and most importantly, too bitin.
My response to all this is that the filmmakers had no choice. The source material was hollow to begin with, and personally I think they did a beautiful job in transforming the words into celluloid. I do think that the complaints are legitimate in a sense that those who aren't familiar with the source material are too alienated to appreciate the film. I was able to justify the film by appealing to what I know from the novel itself.
But the point is that it shouldn't be that way: it's the filmmakers' task to make the plot accessible to everyone, especially those who haven't read a word of Harry Potter. This should be the mark of a successful adaptation.
Therefore many of the plot's intricacies should have been made more explicit: Dumbledore and Harry's relationship, the terror evoked by the Death Eaters, Riddle's diary (perhaps flashbacks from CoS could've been used), the reason for Harry's anger towards Bellatrix, and most especially Snape's role in the entire plot (and the mystery that surrounds his ultimate loyalty). I believe his role should have been greater, apropos to his significance in the series' plot. The filmmakers should have taken liberty to explain these details to the audience rather than being so harried as to aim for fidelity to the source material.
I also think many people were disappointed with the movie because its tone is so different from other Harry Potter films. Like I have mentioned above, it's not an action-packed film, but a cerebral, plot-driven film; in other words, a drama. There was magic and fireworks, sure (W&W Wizarding Shop) but its themes run deeper and it really touches the heart and soul of Rowling's ultimate message: the power of redemptive love, vis-a-vis Voldy's (self)destruction. (The teenage Riddle was fuckin creepy in the Slughorn's memory scene. Gave me chills.)
At the very core, HBP is an appeal to our morality. It is didactic. It's also pretty damn dark to be marketed as a summer action blockbuster. It's atypical and weird. But it's also pretty fun. Hey it's a Harry Potter flick. :)) Go see it because everyone else has seen it, and because I reviewed it.
I give it 4 stars because POA is still the best among the HP films for me: Alfonso Cuaron did a CRAZYHOLYMINDFUCK of a good job.
---
I've always found the Half-Blood Prince to be the most problematic among Rowling's seven novels.
I've read somewhere that this novel, along with the second (CoS), are the densest in terms of plot and character development. This is true. The super-important concept of the Horcruxes is revealed. Alby also gets his last chance to "confess" to Harry the secrets that he had kept from him "all these long years" (my memory is to vague to be more specific at the moment), and ultimately passes on the baton of responsibility to Harry.
However, HBP suffers greatly from its weight that it becomes unwieldy and unfriendly to read. As part of the entire series, it is brilliant. But taken in isolation, it is a friggin lousy novel. In fact, I wrote a scathing review on HBP a few years back when it first came out: I called it "J.K. Rowling and the Half-Baked Novel", in which I found several things lacking in the book.
To wit:
1) The main villain doesn't put in an appearance, therefore no emotional or structural peak is reached.
2) NOTHING HAPPENS. The main narrative of the novel follows closely those of the previous books (i.e. the Hogwarts schoolyear calendar of summer-exposition-firstday-school routine-rising action-Xmas break-more school-spring-climax), but doesn't add anything new. It simply traces the skeletal backbone of the structure HP readers are already familiar with - but NOTHING OF RELEVANCE HAPPENS to maintain the interest of the reader.
3) The tone is different. Since the plot is more cerebral and explanatory than action-packed, Rowling has to sustain interest and inject humor through different means. She does this ineffectively through a cheap, tacky counterpoint: the unnecessarily detailed love lives of the teenage protagonists. The plot twists (i.e. the eponymous Half-Blood Prince's identity; Lupin and Tonks' love affair) are also quite shallow.
4) DUMBY'S DEATH. Much like some fangirls I know who gouged their eyes out after Sirius died in OTP, I was emotionally distraught at how Rowling killed Harry's mentor oh-so-sadistically, in my opinion. I mean DUH, he was the only guy in the entire friggin universe who was actually intelligent enough to do something productive to combat the evil dude. I was so enraged by the fact that I wasn't able to focus on the words in the page after that happened - in any rate it all became anticlimactic and increasingly moody and blah.
This rage was actually the impetus for my writing that scathing book review in the first place, and hating Rowling for a goodish while. Of course after I had sufficiently calmed down and gained some perspective on the whole series, I understood perfectly why it was logical for Dumbledore to die, in order for Harry to stand up and be a fucking man. The periwinkle apron strings had to be cut off some time.
---
This leads me to my movie review.
First of all, a caveat: I came in the cinema with no expectations whatsoever, and because I am a fan of the series, I took the movie (and this subsequent review of it) quite seriously. Plus I paid P190 to watch it on a Dolby Digital screen (the Gateway cinema with the post-modern shiny chairs in front of it, next to the Timezone Arena). Alone. On a school night. Alone. P190. So everything I type from here on out is naturally and irrevocably BIASED.
First, the good stuff: The characterization really stands out. Luna is still loopy and ethereal. Emma Watson is eye-candy. Ron is still the comic relief. Bellatrix is MAD MAD MAD (and fuckin ozam). But Tom Felton is the ultimate WIN. He hasn't been given much chance to shine in the previous films, and now it is revealed that he can ACT. (Or at least look like he's constipated half the time, for reasons that were surprisingly undisclosed. WTF was he doing crying in that bathroom?!)
As for Dan, uhhh. @_@ I have no words for someone whose main method of acting is clenching his jaws. Come on already. But I reeeeally couldn't get enough of the Felix Felicis sequence. *Poof!* HAHAHA. The entire audience was laughing out loud. Not to mention that the Aragog scene was beautifully shot. Conclusion: Dan does comedy best. Or at least he acts best when he's not taking himself and his role too seriously.
I think people are bashing the movie for the same reasons that I bashed the book. Some of the legitimate comments I've heard so far: it was too ponderous (David apparently slept through it several times), too teeny-bopper, too WTF ENUF WIT DA TEENY ROMANCE ALREADY, and most importantly, too bitin.
My response to all this is that the filmmakers had no choice. The source material was hollow to begin with, and personally I think they did a beautiful job in transforming the words into celluloid. I do think that the complaints are legitimate in a sense that those who aren't familiar with the source material are too alienated to appreciate the film. I was able to justify the film by appealing to what I know from the novel itself.
But the point is that it shouldn't be that way: it's the filmmakers' task to make the plot accessible to everyone, especially those who haven't read a word of Harry Potter. This should be the mark of a successful adaptation.
Therefore many of the plot's intricacies should have been made more explicit: Dumbledore and Harry's relationship, the terror evoked by the Death Eaters, Riddle's diary (perhaps flashbacks from CoS could've been used), the reason for Harry's anger towards Bellatrix, and most especially Snape's role in the entire plot (and the mystery that surrounds his ultimate loyalty). I believe his role should have been greater, apropos to his significance in the series' plot. The filmmakers should have taken liberty to explain these details to the audience rather than being so harried as to aim for fidelity to the source material.
I also think many people were disappointed with the movie because its tone is so different from other Harry Potter films. Like I have mentioned above, it's not an action-packed film, but a cerebral, plot-driven film; in other words, a drama. There was magic and fireworks, sure (W&W Wizarding Shop) but its themes run deeper and it really touches the heart and soul of Rowling's ultimate message: the power of redemptive love, vis-a-vis Voldy's (self)destruction. (The teenage Riddle was fuckin creepy in the Slughorn's memory scene. Gave me chills.)
At the very core, HBP is an appeal to our morality. It is didactic. It's also pretty damn dark to be marketed as a summer action blockbuster. It's atypical and weird. But it's also pretty fun. Hey it's a Harry Potter flick. :)) Go see it because everyone else has seen it, and because I reviewed it.
I give it 4 stars because POA is still the best among the HP films for me: Alfonso Cuaron did a CRAZYHOLYMINDFUCK of a good job.