Image from Glove Lore by Otis H. Kean & Co., 1897
I finished reading the Harry Potter series by mid-2007 and, to be honest, I have rarely thought back on the books since then. They made much less of an impression than I had thought at the time - the only time I think about Harry Potter is when a new installment in the Harry Potter film series is released. The new movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, comes a full two years after the book series wrapped up, and I found watching it to be not unlike exhuming a corpse. Luckily, it is a corpse I feel quite a bit of affection for, it is well preserved, and it feels good to be reunited for a brief period.
In book form, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (one of my favorites of the series) was 650 pages long, and getting that many pages into 150 minutes must have been a challenge, but I think that it is a qualified success. Writer Steve Kloves has figured out how to make a Harry Potter movie that people will enjoy, and he follows that formula here, making sure that nothing gets left out entirely while making some smart compromises. The Half-Blood Prince is paced well and follows a clean plot arc that reveals how smart some of Rowling's writing was under all the clutter.
The visual effects are impressive throughout the movie, and director David Yates has done a good job over the last two films of darkening the atmosphere of the Potter-verse to mirror the books' shifting tone. Director of Photography Bruno Delbonnel keeps things low-key for the most part, but makes some eye-pleasing choices in framing his shots (particularly in the shadowy halls of Hogwarts). And most of the cast members acquit themselves well, with Jim Broadbent being a notably great addition, even though I initially thought him too "watery" to play the gruff Professor Slughorn.
The Half-Blood Prince did have some grating weak points, though. I know the cast is competent - even the younger actors are pretty experienced at this point - but most of the cast had frustratingly uneven line deliveries. Some scenes were pitch-perfect, but others were bafflingly awkward. I think this must be a result of the director's style - I'm guessing that Yates didn't do a lot of retakes and may not have helped the actors much with line readings.
My greatest frustration with The Half-Blood Prince may be that it was too short to do the story justice. The mystery referred to in the title is set aside halfway through the film to focus on building up to the film's climax so that, when the "half-blood prince" reveals himself, it doesn't have much impact at all. The film also suffers from some quick cuts between scenes that make things feel rushed - in an attempt to get the movie down to two and a half hours, they were probably doing a lot of "editing room magic" and it shows. I almost think that this movie would be better divided into two parts, as the team has decided to do for the film's final chapter. From my memory of the books, though, The Half-Blood Prince is a lot more eventful and dramatic than The Deathly Hallows, which I remember as dragging quite a bit in the middle and having long sequences that went nowhere. We'll find out how the series finale translates to film when Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I comes out next year.
"Wizard Buys a Hat" by the Mountain Goats
2 comments:
I couldn't help but wonder, what makes you so knowledgable about exhuming corpses...?
Good review of the movie. I had a sense of something lacking in the film's plot that I couldn't quite pin down, but I think you did - the way it underplayed the "Half-Blood Prince" in general, and the anti-climatic reveal of his identity. Gwyn pointed out the great cinematography (like the scene with Malfoy bleeding and Snape kneeling beside him) - and I agree with you both (you're both smarter than I am at film anyway, but independently, I agree). Some great shots.
By the way - the pictures on your blog are great.
Jared! Thanks for the feedback. You mentioning the scene with Malfoy and Snape reminded me of something - I think that more was made in the book of the "Septum Sempra" spell and its effects. In the movie, they completely glossed over that - another reason why the "big reveal" at the end didn't work right.
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