Monday, August 3, 2009

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince



There are rabid Harry Potter fans who attend midnight screenings and bookstore events to purchase their books and movie tickets. Others know about the boy wizard, maybe slogged through one book, and show up weeks after a movie has already made millions in profit. That describes me, and the other ten folk yesterday at the AMC Theater.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was different than the other installments of the lucrative franchise; the actors performances were nuanced, the direction was confident, and the production design was especially rich. When a beloved book is brought to the screen, the fear of disappointing fans can result in a bloated, overwrought production. Although I haven’t read all the books, I have seen all the films and noticed a change for the better in this last chapter.

Except for Harry. His friends are full of angst and lust and jealousy, his teachers show their warmth and humor, even Hogwarts School has established a personality over these many years. Why is it that Harry Potter, the ‘chosen one’, the future wizard beyond measure of all wizards, is so UNinteresting?

1 comment:

Darla Brown said...

I thought it was one of the better ones. I've read all the books and some fans felt this installment left out too much from the book. I couldn't remember if it did or not because I enjoyed the movie anyways. It had a nice pace to it. Some of the others dragged on a bit much trying to fit in EVERY thing from the book.

I went the weekend it came out and there was a grown man with a Hogwart's robe, a plastic wand that lights up, and the Harry glasses.

I was in heaven.