The Best till Now (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (DVD))

Member Name: diamond_sparkles

Product:	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (DVD)
Date:	14/09/09 (32 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great acting and true to my interpretation of the book

Disadvantages: Some parts could have been polished off

(Film only review)


I am usually a notorious finger pointing, bitter critic of all the Harry Potter movies. I have feasted upon the seven books and I never, ever saw even a single one of the five previous movies do any justice to the series as a whole. Until I finally decided to watch the latest movie- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Even I cannot deny the intensity and poignancy of the film, in relation to the book. I can easily say that in all the Harry Potter movies, this is the one that really came extremely close to satisfying me and the one that made a more lasting impression on me till date. I really, really loved the film and I think that it did quite a good job into transposing the mail elements of the book. Of course, there were a few drawbacks, a few scenes that could have been better but if I had to compare this film to the previous ones, this one certainly comes close to perfection.


The story takes place in Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts. After the official return of Voldermort one year ago, both the Muggle and Wizarding World are under great strain and chaos. Harry, as the Chosen One, is the only one capable to finish Voldermort- with the help of Ron and Hermione as always. Dumbledore guides Harry through some really gloomy process of into diving into Voldermort's past and witness the transformation from a lonely child to the darkest wizard that ever lived. But through these dangerous times, to what extent will Harry be able to prepare himself to face his mortal enemy- even with Dumbledore by his side as his mentor and guide? Meanwhile, he notes that there is something really strange going on with Draco Malfoy and makes it a must to find out what the latter is up to...


The first thing that truly made me love this film was the strong presence of emotions and sentiments all throughout. One of the reasons why I never liked the previous films is that while the books lay great emphasis upon feelings, the movies had always projected feelings into the background- highlighting the magical effects instead. However, in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, sentiments were literally in the foreground and magic came as a second nature to the characters. I really liked the way in which for once, Harry, his friends, teachers and even enemies, had a more humane aspect to themselves. I believe that this is the first time where I could actually see the actual characters from the book in a movie, and not as mere wand-flipping magical beings! Nearly all the main characters were developed with quite an intensity, and I was really pleased to see how certain aspects of their personalities were purposely highlighted in sense of plot contribution.


There is one element which struck me as quite peculiar in the film: While many scenes had been transposed from the book within the general movie lapse of time, there are quite a few scenes that do not exist in the book. I was at first annoyed but afterwards I realized how there were certain messages/happenings in the book that would have been really hard to convey to the audience; and it therefore seemed to me that the producers purposely introduced some new scenes in order to really make the audience feel certain strong emotions that were being conveyed through the book.


I was also pleased that for once, I was not watching a Harry Potter film that kept rushing and rushing through the plot in order to fit in lots of details in a tiny lapse of time. On the contrary, I particularly enjoyed the deliberately slow pace of the film; they even managed to introduce some meaningless details from the book that would not even contribute to the plot as a whole. My only displeasure with this, however, was that as slow as the pace was during the film, I have to say that the ending was really, really rushed. It was as if I was watching a movie that did not seem to be in any hurry to end, and suddenly it just had to come to a close in order to it to end within the 2hours22 minute's duration. I have to say that I would have loved it a lot more if they had stuck to the slow pace all throughout by removing certain unnecessary details and replacing them with more important plot contributions.


I think that most of the characters remained quite true to the book. I would however, have preferred to see more of Dumbledore and Malfoy. I cannot deny that these two characters have really been explored to show certain aspects of their personalities but I feel that they could have done more. I cannot go into details here without giving any spoilers away but I will just say that these Dumbledore and Malfoy deserved a little bit more attention and maybe some deeper character development.


I have to say that if I considered the previous film to be dark and somewhat scary, this one is even darker and a lot, lot scarier! However, the positive thing is that even through the worst of scenes, the producers manage to introduce certain nice one-liners to somehow relax the audience. Through a series of huge sobs, I often caught myself starting to laugh hysterically to the film.


The acting was good- as always, I was pleased with the performances of the three lead actors. In this particular film, I also extremely admired Tom Felton's performance as Draco Malfoy. He had a somewhat dualistic role to play and I really think he did it with great sensibility and precision to the plot and line delivery. In addition, in the previous films, I really hated the actor who played Dumbledore- to me, he was too rough, too brusque to depict the Hogwarts Headmaster but even I have to admit that his acting was a lot better in this movie. There were a couple of scenes where the line deliveries were forced but I was more or less satisfied by his performance by the end of the movie. It was a much better job than in the previous ones.


The main cast includes
* Danielle Radcliffe
* Rupert Grint
* Emma Watson
* Jim Boadbent
* Robbie Coltrane
* Michael Gambon
* Alan Rickman



Overall, while many of my friends did not really like the film, I personally enjoyed it and despite a couple of rough elements relating to transposition of the plot from the book to the film, I would still recommend this movie to every Harry Potter fan. This is according to me, the best Harry Potter movie till now!


Thanks for reading!

Summary: Tom Riddle as a child