Harry Potter and the Order of the Half Blood Prince

Frustration and Love. 

Two ways to sum up the next two movies in the series. 

These movies are when the kids start changing into adults, despite almost dying time and time again.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is my least favorite of the movies. It also just happens to be my least favorite book, one in which J. K. Rowling decided to torture the hell out of the audience, by giving us an angry emo Harry, an evil witch Umbridge, more torture, long pages of the same thing over and over, tons of useless of subplots, and lots of pages of the same damn thing over and over. It is bad.

The movie doesn't score much better. In this case, it is because most of what they cut to make this movie the shortest in the series is a lot of the stuff that made the book tolerable. What's left is amended and incomplete. In fact, it feels like half a movie, and that is a huge reason why this is my least favorite.

It's not that the acting is bad. The kids kick ass and the adults are amazing. The new character of Umbridge  is played so deliciously evil by Imelda Staunton that it is going to be hard  to see her in anything else without being pissed off at her for her treatment of Harry and the Gang. The character is just so nasty, and Imelda just hits the right cords to make her just so unlikable. Plus the addition of Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood really adds another level to this growing cast. She is so enduring in her obliviousness and innocence. She is great fun to watch on screen. On the evil side, Helena Bonham Carter is brought in as Bellatrix Lestrange and just hits it out of the park. She is evil and crazy and creepy as hell to watch. She is great fun. 

Rounding things out for the returning cast, Gary Oldman does great work as Sirius, Julie Walters does great work as Ms. Weasley, Alan Rickman is a brilliant Snape, Maggie Smith gets a few good scenes in as McGonagall and Michael Gambon does a great Dumbledore. The chracters are just really well done. 

So many things just don't work. The constant dark and bad that happens. Harry acting incredibly stupid and selfish and angry towards everyone. Umbridge torturing ALL the students, and then that ending. Yes, the kids get to fight a great and exciting battle, but it feels too short and doesn't feel at all as successful as it was in the book. The kids aren't given the proper respect and as such, several of them just seem to disappear into the world of plot holes for a bit. When the Order arrives, the end battle gets really kicked into high gear, only to have it over in minutes. However, we are treated to an amazingly awesome showdown between Dumbledore and Voldemort. I guess that could count for a lot. Of course, during the course of the fight, Siruis is killed, which is one of the most pointless things in the ENTIRE Harry Potter series. Without a doubt, this is one of those moments that hurts like hell, but then when you go back and question it, it makes little sense. 

After all is said and done, the things we take away from this year that Harry is mad and Siruis is dead. That's about it. The Order is given the shaft, as the new characters are shrugged off, including Tonks, who are so important in the book to the story and here they are just ignored, and come and go as if they are nothing big. There are no O.W.L's as in the book, with Harry and Dumbledore's Army kicking ass at their defense against the dark arts test. There is no St. Mungo's and therefore we don't get to see Neville and his parents, a true tragedy to the character. Dumbledore's Army is missing a ton of coolness as it is barely developed here and just feels too rushed. I just didn't believe that the students had learned as much as they did, in the short time that they had been learning. But, hey, at least we get Grawp. Can't forget that. Grawp (one of the absolute WORST things about the book) here is little more than a stupid plot device that just doesn't work and feels tacked on. And, he looks like Alfred E. Newman. In a vest. Oy!

So, very little is gained from this movie, and therefore there is very few things that I like about it. There might be a few flairs of greatness here and there, but for the most part this movie falls flat on so many levels. 

Thank god that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince  is a much better film. It at least takes a novel that was good, and turns it into a beautiful and moving film.

 It introduces Horace Slughorn, a fun new character, who is played by the brilliant Jim Broadbent. This characters is just a lot of fun and gets some really amazingly funny and emotional engaging scenes. 

Love  is running rampbid in the halls of Hogwarts. The kids are feeling their hormones grow and they are finally getting to see each otehr in an new and more interesting ways. They also learn the hard lessons of how jealousy can really hurt while finding that person that you are truly to be with. We get Ron and Hermione's relationship taking a new direction, from jealousy, when Ron is with Lavender Brown, and relief when they are finally together. The audience actually breaths a sigh of relief when this happens. 

This is also a year of learning that Lord Voldemort is capable of being destroyed through the destruction of items called Horcrux's. This is a year of learning just how big the price of learning this information is. This is also the year that Draco Malfoy becomes a much bigger player, as he is on a mission for the dark lord. Something that is going to require him to betray the very school that he has been apart of for the last 6 years. Tom Felton takes the character of Draco and makes him both hate able and sympathetic. He is very powerful this year, as his character is slowly falling apart as his mission and his conscience are struggling with each other.   

The movie captures so much in the time it has. It is a very well done take on the book, with the acting surpburb, the story well done, and the tension real. At no time does this movie ring false. The stakes are high. The cost of doing the right thing, costs lives. Betrayal is thick in the air, bringing it to a gut wrenching and heartbreaking end.

One of the biggest problems, however, is the ending. It is apparent that the writers and director didn't want to have to tackle the giant fight that happens at the end of  the book. It is an epic fight, with people hurt and destroyed, with Hogwarts under attack from the very people they have been trying to keep out, proving that Hogwarts is not as safe and secure as it should be or once was. It proves that even Voldemort is too powerful and resourceful to just be ignored. The filmmakers literally neuter the ending, allowing the Deatheaters into the castle, letting them kick plates and destroy windows, collect Draco and Snape, and then walk away. There is no battle. There is no heroics. They just walk in one door, out another, end scene. It's bad. Real bad. Very anti-climatic. This movie should have rocked the hell out of this scene, and instead it shrugs it off. 

Another additional scene that hurts the movie is one that takes place in the Burrows in which several Deatheaters show up, fight with Harry, Ginny, Arthur, and a few others, then destroy the house. It is a pointless scene that goes on for way too long and takes the place of a much stronger scene in the book, one that should have been in the film. This scene is a prime example of what happens when a dumb idea is added and filmed. This scene is completely useless and does nothing except...well, I don't know what it does. 

Still, with the exception of those two scenes, we do have some great things here. Half-Blood Prince is one of the best of the bunch. The quality of which can be felt growing with every moment. It does it job well, as it gets us ready for the next two films. 

The music for both films was done by Nicholas Hooper, and he brings wonderment to this film. He is able to take the themes built within the Williams originals, and expands on them, adding heart and mischeif, adding fun and excitement, adding hurt and fear. These scores are among the most sucessful of the series and together are a triumph. Mr. Hooper as done the Potterverse justice. 

So here we are headed into the final film. From here there is only go, go, go, as the stakes in this movie are too high to ignore. Bring on the finale!

--MGS