Bad news for HBP
THRILLED Harry Potter fans went to a secret test screening of his sixth movie - only to brand it a load of old HOGWARTS yesterday.
The handful of devotees came out blasting film bosses for making key characters and plot-lines from JK Rowling's best-seller disappear ... as if by magic. New scenes in Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince - out here on July 17 - were branded "pointless".
Meanwhile the Half-Blood Prince of the title barely features. Worse still the film was slammed as too SOPPY. One gutted fan raged: "The film is dominated by romance - Ron with Lavender Brown, Ginny with Dean Thomas, Hermione's growing love for Ron, Ron's potion-affected desire for Romilda Vane, and ultimately Harry and Ginny."
Another warned The Sun: "Anyone who has read the book will be severely disappointed." The latest adventure sees schoolboy wizard Harry - played by Daniel Radcliffe - taught by mentor Dumbledore how to defeat his arch-enemy Voldemort. In the book Harry has a series of crucial "memories". But the film slashes these to just two. Even the death of a major character proves to be so hamfisted it fails to make the Warner Bros movie less of a dumblebore.
One enraged fan said: "It partially blows what may be the biggest surprise of the entire franchise."
Another who was at the US screening moaned: "The last third of this movie is so incredibly mishandled the death feels more like an unfortunate accident than genuine tragedy." A crumb of good news for director David Yates is that a fight scene not in the book - featuring an attack by Death Eaters on the Millennium Bridge - got the thumbs-up
source: my eyes, The Sun early editions.