Idiot Board: Harry Potter and the whole-bloody film
(a critique on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince film)
Is it Voldemort or Snape? Or was it Snape’s past that Harry and Professor Dumbledore views in the pensive? Or does the movie revolved around Draco’s transformation? These are some of the questions raised by HP regular viewers who haven’t had read the book and especially those who had.
Movies always disappoint the readers. Readers expect to see what they had imagined from the book. Personally, my P160.00 cinema ticket worth of three times watching the movie did not compensate my disappointment after.
Although the director was trying to pull in things together to weave the movie, still there were countless loopholes that should be taken seriously, including the dark cinematography. I have listed top five scenes and screenplay, which are unanswered in the movie.
1. Harry and Ginny’s love story: In the book, Ginny already gave up her love to Harry, which is why it was Harry who made the first move of courting Ginny. It was during Ginny’s first Quiddich game that Gryfindor won through her stroke and for that Harry kissed and hugged her in front of the crowd. In the movie: Ginny appeared to have flirted to Harry, so ironic. And lastly, Ginny and Harry should have talked during Dumbledore’s burial, where they discussed about Harry’s search for the horcruxes and their relationship.
2. The film failed to focus the story on the title and created a heavy scene of Draco Malfoy’s transformation to be Voldemort’s new recruit. So it shouldn’t have been HP and the Half-blood prince but “HP and Draco’s mission as a new death eater”
3. I know that the sixth installation of the book is hard to portray on the big screen because of the several sub stories within the main one. But the screenplay writer and the director should have weave the scenes nicely that would connect different sub stories into one. Voldemort’s past seemed to be Snape’s because it wasn’t really explained how and who he was.
4. Ron and Hermoine’s love story is very shallow.
5. I could understand the limitations of the entire film staff for HP but they should have perfected even the last part of the story. Let me show you the exact scene for Dumbledore’s death: when Harry and Professor Dumbledore arrived at Hogwarts with their broomsticks, Dumbledore knows that someone is approaching, so he temporarily paralyzed Harry and covered him with the invisibility cloak. Draco came in and when he was trembling to kill Dumbledore, Snape appeared in the scene and slightly looked at Harry, who was hidden underneath the cloak. Snape then killed Dumbledore.
Dumbledore died with dignity and was given an outstanding burial during a sunny morning, after the death eater attacked Hogwarts. Harry had a conversation with Ginny.
Sequels are predicted to sell no matter how bad or good the movie is because people are anticipating to watch it. In motion picture business, it is the safest way to invest a follow-up movie of the previous one because it promises previous and new audience. This is a sad reality of profit-minded media institution. Despite the expected income and number of audience, the film makers should also think of the quality of the film and the storyline to avoid negative criticism.
As one of the disappointed HP viewers, I am still looking forward to watch the last installation of the book. I hope this time, since it is a two-part movie, would be a more comprehensive and lighter film that would portray almost perfectly what the book had illustrated.
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:06 pm
i agree with your review. really disappointed.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:53 am
thanks for replying shirley! let’s just hope for the last films..