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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Film This Week in Film: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Posted by Lindy West on Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 11:07 AM

In my column this week, I review the new Harry Potter movie. Basically, the gist is this: As a super-embarrassing wizard enthusiast, I enjoyed watching it (magical business! I love it!). As a person-reviewing-a-movie, I just couldn't. I still think Alfonso Cuaron's Prisoner of Azkaban is the only Harry Potter movie that actually feels like a real, thoughtful, well-plotted movie. Which is annoying. Don't you think that's annoying? Get your shit together, movie directors!

How can it be possible that after five tries (Alfonso Cuarón's totally legit Prisoner of Azkaban excepted, obv) the Harry Potter franchise still hasn't figured out how to turn a book into a movie? Half-Blood Prince is 153 minutes long. It is lumpy. It confuses. The source material offers plenty of cinematic potential—it's mysterious and illuminating and scary as fuck—but the film plays out like one long, labored anticlimax, with all the wrong alterations and weird clunky dialogue dragging the plot along (actual quote: "So what was Draco doing with that weird-looking cabinet? And who were all those people?").

Read the whole thing HERE.

Comments (14) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

i still love Sifl&Olly.

Posted by soco on July 16, 2009 at 11:24 AM

Or it could be that the source material is, like The Watchmen, not that easy to salvage something from.

Posted by elenchos on July 16, 2009 at 11:25 AM

Any good adaptation of a book has to make major changes to keep it from being clunky. But Potter fans hate it when any changes are made, and my understanding is that rabid Potter fans were looking to tar and feather Cuaron for actually adapting Azkaban instead of directing from the book.

Posted by keshmeshi on July 16, 2009 at 11:42 AM

I haven't read the books, so I don't have the same sentimental attachment to them. But I have seen all the movies and this was easily the most disappointing of the bunch.

In a lot of ways, it didn't feel like a continuation of the series. The sets were too small and not nearly other-worldy enough for my liking. The relationships felt flat. Meh.

Posted by thegeneral on July 16, 2009 at 11:49 AM

sifl & olly!?!? fuck yeah!!

Posted by richardj on July 16, 2009 at 11:51 AM

I read all the books. Like the one before it, Half-Ass Prince lollygagged until its conclusion. After reading, one would wonder why it took so long to get to the point.
I assume that the film will be just like the book.

Posted by bucket on July 16, 2009 at 11:54 AM

sifl and olly are cool.

That said, what was missing was more in-depth reporting of your critique of the snogging.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 16, 2009 at 12:05 PM

SPOILER

(oh, and they break the last chapter in half - you don't get to see the whole chapter in the movie)

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 16, 2009 at 12:05 PM

I was so disappointed with the movie. Granted, I'm a huge nerdy fan, so my standards are perhaps higher than the average movie goer, but man they f-d it up. I understand that books turned into movies have to have things cut, but then why add in shit that didn't happen? Argh!

Posted by cedarthvader

on July 16, 2009 at 12:14 PM

With the Sifl & Olly video and thoughts on the Harry Potter movies, my Lindy crush just grew tenfold.

Posted by T on July 16, 2009 at 12:34 PM

Sifl & Olly was clearly the pinnacle of human achievement.

Posted by kid icarus

on July 16, 2009 at 12:34 PM

Sifl & Olly might be one of the best things ever created. And Wizzard was one of the bestest.

Posted by TheFang on July 16, 2009 at 1:18 PM

The book is (except for the murder and the cave) mostly exposition needed to set up the events of the last book. It's really the low point of the series. How do you make a good movie out of plot mechanics? You don't. What you do (and what they did) was get through the plot mechanics as best you may and offer some comic relief. Hence the hilariously adolescent romantic subplots, a.k.a, the snogging.

Posted by attitude devant on July 16, 2009 at 4:53 PM

Azkaban and Goblet of Fire were the best adaptions. Half Blood Prince and Order of the Phoenix were the worst and unfortunately the same director is doing the final two movies as well. Half Blood Prince was for sure the funniest of them all, but overkill on the romance and missing basic story elements.

Posted by thunderchaps on July 17, 2009 at 12:08 AM