Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince reviews

Sabin
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Post by Sabin »

I think that visual comedy and narrative cohesiveness was by far the strongest in Cuaron's entry. Yates - on the basis of this film - does the best job with the actors and conveying a sense of atmosphere that's admittedly diametrically opposed to what Cuaron was trying to do or could get away with. The Goblet of Fire is the most forgettable entry in the series by far. I took nothing from it whatsoever and gave up the series after watching it. I am now returned because of Yates.
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Post by taki15 »

IMHO, the fourth installment of the series ("Goblet of Fire") was the best by far for a simple reason. It had the better director.

Columbus and Yates can't hold a candle to Newell's subtle, yet efficient craftmanship and storytelling abilities. He managed to make the characters real flesh-and-blood teenagers, not some literary creations.

And unlike Yates in "Half Blood Prince", Newell handled perfectly the romantic subplots and comedic elements of his movie. Not something unexpected of course from the director that gave us "Four Weddings and a Funeral".

Cuaron's movie was certainly the most interesting and innovative visually. But it was also arguably the most incoherent plotwise and the slapstick comedy bits were completely out of place. Not to mention that he messed up almost beyond recognition the characters.
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Post by Sabin »

My writing partner and I (whose review website can be found at wildlines.blogspot.com) had a conversation yesterday where he - along with myself - agreed that this is the second most accomplished Harry Potter films. I'm about to watch The Order of the Phoenix tonight. He tells me that I didn't miss anything worth caring about. We'll see.

Basically where we both agree is that because the plot of a Harry Potter movie is by far the weakest aspect to any of these unexceptional films (this one, and the Cuaron aside), the marginalization of the plot in lieu of character development, the winning portrayal of adolescence, gorgeous atmosphere, and visual storytelling is a more-than-fair trade-off. I've been told by Potter fans, some of them on this board, that the ending in the book featured a balls-out action sequence throughout Hogwarts. This is a film that could certainly use some form of action-packed conclusion thereby justifying the long build-up, but as a film of detail it's rather succulent if occasionally languishing. My second favorite in the series by far.
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Post by Zahveed »

Sabin wrote:Um, there's a chance what I've written hasn't made much sense now that I realize this crucial thing:

'The Half-Blood Prince' wasn't the one chopped in two. The next one was. Which means that somehow this plot sustained itself for an entire book of 652 pages. How many pages were devoted to illustrations? Like 200?

I believe there's only a tiny illustration at the start of each chapter. Most of the book is about flashbacks and the quest for wizard sex.




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Sabin
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Post by Sabin »

Um, there's a chance what I've written hasn't made much sense now that I realize this crucial thing:

'The Half-Blood Prince' wasn't the one chopped in two. The next one was. Which means that somehow this plot sustained itself for an entire book of 652 pages. How many pages were devoted to illustrations? Like 200?
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Post by Zahveed »

In theory, the next films will be the strongest of the murder?
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Post by Sabin »

Yeah. I still don't understand splitting the last book as it's got a fairly length, boring middle section that could have easily been condensed. I mean, if they can condense the loads of great action and backstory in books like Order of the Phoenix and Goblet of Fire into one film, why can't they do it with the last book?

I missed this. I'll respond to this.

I watched this movie with a girl who read the books and has mixed reviews but she basically said: "Some people think the movies should be companion pieces for people who read the book. This is half the book so it won't make sense to a lot of people." I responded to the imagery and a well-directed mood but clearly this is the work of frustration to A) stay faithful to a huge book, and B) make it into a movie. There's no act structure to anything in it. It's just stuff happening. What I saw could have very easily have been condensed into an hour.

How shall I put this...?

I've been very vocal about how I think that Harry Potter is a book for children, so I'm going to take the opposite route in this one. Imagine you've been given the job of adapting the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob into a movie from the Old Testament. You can't piss people off by leaving anything out. They're nuts about this stuff. You can turn it into two movies though. So the first movie is about Abraham and some of Isaac. Unfortunately, it cuts off at a mild "CALL TO ACTION" point early into the Second Act of most movies that would occur in Isaac's life. In lieu of condensing Abraham's life into a prologue that takes about ten minutes, you need all your savory little details. And then all the details of Isaac's life until a Call for Action that can justify cutting it in two.

It's really the same thing. At a certain point, you either have to live with seeing your Bible changed (which some Potter fans - the girl who saw it with me - are not willing to do, even to the point of saying that the movies should only be for people who read the books) or live with it not being an actual movie.
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Post by Zahveed »

They started off as children's novels and as the original audiance grew older, the plot became more elaborate and progressively more mature. Not as elaborate as Tolkien or mature as King, but just enough to get a mix children, teens, and young(er) adults. I think the series benefitted from this growth both thematically and, obviously, commercially.
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Post by anonymous1980 »

I wouldn't call the Harry Potter series children's novels which you seem to use as a pejorative. I'd like to refer to them as 'young adult' novels. (It's where it's located in bookstores).

I'm seeing this within 24 hours. It officially opens here tomorrow. I took the day off from work (which I haven't had in a long while) to see it first day.
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Post by Sabin »

I'm going to approach this film with three caveats:

1) I shouldn't have to read your children's book to understand your children's movie. It's not Proust, people.
2) I missed The Order of the Phoenix so this is my first encounter with Yates' approach.
3) I'm not arguing the first point for a second. Any follow-up to my first point will be completely ignored.


...so...back to Hogwart's.

My favorite Harry Potter movie is The Prisoner of Azkaban. Not for the story or characterizations, the latter of which until this movie has been about as deep and flavorful as a bowl of porridge left out on the windowsill. What I liked about The Prisoner of Azkaban is what most people resort to when they can't explain any reason why they like this nonsense. "I just like the world!" The Prisoner of Azkaban is a tactile film full of wonders you can all-but touch. It uses time travel in a somewhat simplistic but still enjoyable way. AND! - my favorite thing - I knew what the fuck was going on!

(I'm going to cite my first caveat again: 1) this is a children's book. I should be able to understand it.)

So, the third movie had that going for it. And wonderful visual direction. Yates' success as a director is a strange one. He favors a economical coverage that is leagues above Columbus but doesn't quite find the right notes of humor within the performances that Cuaron did. There was an humor to his direction. The audience laughed in this film. I tittered twice. What Yates does strongly is (even more so than Cuaron, though with that material how could he?) develop these children into people. Childhood is complicated. This film - and Yates - knows it. The film could have devolved twice as much into caricature. He plays to the cheap seats at times - he has to - but there is an adolescent awkwardness and charm to the performances that is wisely judged and calibrated that I have not seen before. For the first time in this series, I see them as people.

(Thanks, dicks. Only took you how many hours of my fucking life I'll never get back? Twenty?)

Now, peppered on the margins of this slothing beast of a film are little behavioral beauties that I found very enjoyable. Y'know, 'cause I like human interaction in my movies. The plot of the film...I have no idea. I haven't looked it up yet. I know it involves a Half-Blood Prince of some sort. The film features a lot of baby-talking about and around things of which I have no Earthy clue. No idea. I know who it turns out to be, but this film clearly adapts things that made a lot more sense on the pages of this children's book and did not translate to something coherent on the screen. Nobody I was with knew what the hell it was about either. Before I explain why that's not the worst thing in the world:

-- Keep in mind. I'm going to look it all up. I don't need you to tell me. I'm speaking as A) someone who just got out of the theater, B) someone who has not seen The Order of the Phoenix, and C) someone who has not read the children's novels upon which this children's movie is adapted. I'm sure some stuff was lost or changed, as is the case with all films adapted from novels regardless of the age range they're intended for, K through whatever. I just think if one is going to make a children's movie from a children's novel, it should make sense to a reasonably intelligent person in their upper-twenties. That's it.

I'm about twenty minutes into Summer Hours. I had to turn it off because I had to be at work in six hours. It's already an amazing film that I'll write about pretty soon, but it features cinematography from Eric Gautier who is quickly becoming my favorite living cinematographer. What he does with image, movement, and lighting is so subtle and glorious. What we're looking at in The Half-Blood Prince is the polar opposite. It may as well be 10K-transfered and is clearly aping the LOTR films, but it just looks sweet. Every image to me feels like a distillation of menace and otherworldly beauty and it was lovely to look at. It's not simply how much money they put into it to make it look like this. I don't know if the filmmakers set out to make a film entirely composed of Harry Potter iconography but this unruly beast of a narrative benefits from it, especially considering that it boasts some of the best performances from the kids in the series. There's no comparing the visual storytelling to The Prisoner of Azkaban. That was filmmaking. This is just pretty. But very clearly they're going for a LOTR visual aesthetic, but it might come across as scary to all the children who are watching this film. And there's blood! I don't know how this managed a PG rating.

Between the prettiness and the charming moments, the fact that it didn't make any form of sense didn't seem to matter as much. My one complaint really (not the fact that it didn't make any form of sense; that would've been nice, but...) is that two-and-a-half hours is pretty long for a children's movie. There are several moments in this film where it actually appeared to have a lot at stake. The compositions draw a lot of (LOTR-inspired) menace and I found myself actually deeply engrossed. But I can't imagine this film's target audience being able to sit still for this long! Let alone the parents that brought them...

So here's Harry Potter as it's meant to be seen: overlong, post-corrected baby-talk that draws far too heavily on LOTR-inspired color scheme...but it was always going to go here and I ended up kind of liking it.
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Post by OscarGuy »

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Post by Zahveed »

A few changes are fine, but they kept basic plot points and character features intact. The point I was trying to make was there are studios, like Fox, would just take the liscense and make up their own shit to throw on the screen.



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Post by rolotomasi99 »

Zahveed wrote:They may be greedy buggers, but at least they've been more faithful to a film's source material than say, 20th Century Fox.
Fidelity to a book source often produces boring movies. Look at the Harry Potter series. The movie which includes the most material from the book and the least amount of cinematic changes is THE SORCERER'S STONE, which most people agree is the worst of the films. THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN and THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX made the most changes from the book (especially since the latter was the longest book but the shortest movie), and they are largely considered the two strongest films in the series.

In terms of changing things in the transition from book to film, I think the most important question is are these changes good for the film? If they make it a better film, than that is all that matters. APOCALYPSE NOW barely resembles its source material, and is a better movie for it.

I know the Harry Potter films are not in the same league as APOCALYPSE NOW, but THE HOBBIT could be awesome. As great as the Lord Of The Rings film series was, Jackson was definitely at a disadvantage dramatically stretching the same story over three films. I would not want it any other way, but it makes it more difficult to judge each film individually.

THE HOBBIT though was perfect because it was one book and could easily be told as one film. I forgot how greedy the studios can be. If one film was the story of The Hobbit and the other was a broader story of Middle Earth, it would make sense. THE HOBBIT part 1 and part 2 though is just ridiculous. Than again, so is the movie based on the view finder toy that was just announced. I guess this is the price we pay to see amazing films get made. Some stupid films have to be made in order to raise the dough to finance the smaller (but still expensive) well made films.
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Post by Zahveed »

I thought Del Toro confirmed a two-part Hobbit and not one hobbit movie and another entity.
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Post by OscarGuy »

Well, Rolo, it really remains to be seen if the two hobbit movies are actually entirely based on the hobbit or if the first one is based on the hobbit and the second is based on the attack on the necromancer...But, considering the source material and possibilities, it would be very difficult to tell it well within the confines of a 3-hour movie.
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